


A Shadow So Great

by NorthernHarrier (aleramicci)



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Assassination Plot(s), Barbarian Pacification Campaign, Childhood, Coming of Age, Consensual Sex, Darius POV, Darius-centric, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Gen, Institute of War, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, International Relations, Ionian War, Journal of Justice, Laws of War, League Judgement, League of Legends - Freeform, League of Legends Judgement, Masturbation, Noxian Champions, Noxus, Origin Story, Politics, Psychological Trauma, Rune War, Sadism, Tragedy, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 200,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleramicci/pseuds/NorthernHarrier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How does one become the Hand of Noxus? Nearly two decades before that fateful day he displayed his loyalty to his chosen candidate by beheading Keiran Darkwill- Darius was one of many soldiers trying to survive in a place that held no regard for the weak and the unworthy.  With every action comes an equal and lasting consequence, and even the boy who would later become the Grand General's second is not exempt from this cosmic law.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Western Stars

 

_Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'_

_We are not now that strength which in old days_

_Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;_

_One equal temper of heroic hearts,_

_Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will_

_To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._

**Ulysses (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)**

* * *

There was a white hair on his head again, right where the last one used to be- on his forehead, slightly above his right eyebrow. It was a single line of snow against a sea of charred ash. He had pulled out the one that came before in a sudden moment of vanity, but now, he felt that he had deserved the sign of old age.

It was not because he had grown enough in his mind to be called wise, no. There were other people in the world that deserved the honor. He did not. The white in his hair was not a sign of wisdom for him; it was a sign of his regret.

He was still young- only thirteen seasons old- but already he had an insistent little hair on his head that reflected how much he felt he had grown tired of the world, of how much he had hated his life enough that he wished himself to be old and gone. It was a great amount of self-loathing, to be sure, and some would say that it was a disease that every teenager went through in order to become a mature adult, but this young man, this boy of thirteen years  _knew_  he deserved it. Unlike his peers, unlike those with imaginary slights,  _he_  had enough accountability left in him to know that everything was his fault, and his obligation towards it ensured that his guilt would be substantial.

But there is always one who would say  _Ah, you cannot measure guilt_ , and they would be right. Guilt is immeasurable simply because it is unique. One cannot say that ' _my guilt is greater than yours_ '- simply because the amount of value one places on one's guilt is reliant on how much regret, how much sorrow and anger and nausea one feels. The simple fact that people  _see_  things differently, that people  _think_  differently, guarantees variance and confusion and perpetuates anarchy in the standard of human feelings and thought. After all, how much guilt should be  _felt_? How much sorrow should one  _have_?

But if there were a reliable measure for feelings then, he would be at the very peak- and it was all because of what happened to him three days ago- it was the singular event that would set everything in motion, the one moment of wholesale destruction that would result in the eradication of everything he loved and the creation of a void he would always seek to fill.

Thrust into fire and tempered by a callous world, he would turn into something like the greatest Demacian demon- an uncompromising, axe-wielding butcher- but that was not yet  _now_.

 _Now_ … was different.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**  

Darius is actually a great, understated character that many people make out to be nothing but dumb muscle. He is a General, first and foremost, and to become a General in a place like Noxus is actually an impressive achievement and hints that Darius possesses a greater intelligence than one would give him credit for.

You can't deny that given what we know of Noxus, Darius should have left Draven to die years ago because strength is all that matters in Noxus-- but he didn't. He is a responsible Noxian, which is very odd if you take into account the Darwinist atmosphere that Riot gave to Noxus. And what makes him even weirder is that he literally bows out to give Jericho Swain the title of Grand General.

Why?

A man thirsty for power would go for it and fuck all, but Darius bows out, and he gives it to a handicapped, but tactically masterful General instead of giving it to Keiran Darkwill, the son of Boram Darkwill, a man who ought to have his allegiance and respect in the army because the young Darkwill is, as the Journal of Justice states, an excellent duelist.

Darius is intelligent, but he makes no great show of it and that is partially why I am exceedingly fond of him.

I have tried my best to infer what could have happened to him in order to make him what he is, and the end result is this fan fiction you are reading right now. A Shadow So Great is a work that has taken me months to plan, and as you may guess from the Published On Date, it is taking me literal years to write. It deals with mature themes such as violence, sex, contains excessive cursing and places League of Legends characters in a mildly realistic universe that I had to build from the ground up in order to supplement what lore we have that Riot has made available (Judgements, Journal of Justice etc.).

Much of what you will encounter here has basis in lore which I merely interpreted, but as always, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and their own version of the League universe.

All of this was written and planned before the September Dev Blog that wiped the Lore state clean, so treat this as an Alternative Universe. Anything from the New Lore (i.e. Azir, Rek'Sai etc.) will most likely not make it here, unless I can find a way to squirrel it in without breaking immersion. 

Thank you very much and I hope you enjoy my attempt at explaining how Darius became Darius, Hand of Noxus, Scourge of Demacia and Second In Command to Jericho Swain.


	2. Fait Accompli

_An old Italian was inside to wait on customers._

_As I was paying him I saw that he was sad._

_"You are sad," I said. "What is troubling you?"_

_"Yes," he said, "I am sad." Then he added_

_in the same monotone, not looking at me:_

_"My son left for the front today and I'll never see him again."_

_"Don't say that!" I said. "Of course, you will!"_

_"No," he answered. "I'll never see him again."_

**[During the Second World War . . .] (Charles Reznikoff)**

* * *

**ONE MONTH AGO...**

There was a boy counting rocks on the hill.

He was bent over in thought, his face all scrunched up. The rocks had sharp edges, as was the nature of volcanic rock, and would've cut a careless youth's hands to ribbons. But this boy was different. Still at the lip of adolescence, his hands were already calloused at the palm and at the thumb.

He handled the rocks easily. He would pick them up and run the tip of his finger against the jagged edges, testing the durability of his flesh against the cutting edge. If the stone made a mark against his skin, he would put it into a smaller pile. Failing that, the little thing was thrown over his shoulder, discarded.

He was not a scholar. If he was, the thickened skin would be on the third and first fingers. He was not a musician either, as his fingers were not long and elegant enough. They were about as squat and hardy as he was, which was to say that he lacked the dexterity and finesse required to play anything. He was thickly built for his age, at a time when the rest of his peers were still slowly filling out. He had unruly black hair that tended to stick out, a nose that was too sharp to be considered as a handsome feature at the age of twelve, a square jaw and a mouth seemingly set in a thin-lipped frown.

Compared to the rest of his features, however, his eyes had some light in them; holding in their depths some hint that he was not purely made of muscle and not completely stupid. A woodcutter's son didn't have much by the way of words, but he had the advantage of street-smarts, which in Noxus was about as valuable as intelligence itself- given the right place and the right time.

Certainly, counting rocks was not a very fruitful endeavor, nor was it very smart to do so, but it was to the boy. Once he had gathered a sizable pile of the sharpest rocks he could find, he gathered them all up in his worn-down shirt and went down the hill like a demented apple picker whose fruits lay inside an apron. He did not skip, because that was simply too silly to do so and he felt that there was no point in skipping when one would lose the rocks one had worked so hard to find.

He walked past rows of dead trees whose spindly fingers reached for the heavens, past the barren land where a few unlucky farmers were trying to make do. His sandal-clad feet hit the beaten road with flat thumps. Five hundred seconds brought him over the deadly moat that encircled the city-state and into one of the less prosperous wards. The massive granite skull that was the seat of Noxian High Command loomed over the gates, seemingly watching the boy and his strange burden.

He moved through the crowd easily. His patched-up clothes and drab colors blended in with everyone else's. It wasn't often that anyone with colorful clothing ran through the streets of Noxus, except maybe in the more expensive and prosperous Wards. It was not because everyone in Noxus had to wear dark colors, or had rules on dying cloth a shade of black. It was simply because color, or rather the creation of dye, was expensive in Noxus.

Unlike in Demacia, where coloring plants and their bright dyes were so easily taken from the surrounding areas, the aforementioned plants refused to grow in Noxus. It was as if the very land itself would not allow it. Whatever color the ancestors could manage to coax from the land was what the Noxians of today settled with: red was made from the corpses of insects raised on the trees outside; yellow was boiled from a root; blue, never as bright as Demacian blue, was created from the ground remnants of a shrub; boiled lichens created a deep green, and black was scraped from deep within the earth, and then mixed with pitch.

It was a sign of wealth then, to have so many colors on one's person, but red was always more prestigious for the simple reason that insect corpses were harder to gather and grind up than it was to simply mix ochre with pitch. The deeper the shade of red and the closer it was to the color of blood, the more the cloth and therefore the resulting clothing, was valued. It was for this same reason that redheads, particularly those from the house of Du Couteau, are often thought of as lucky or blessed within Noxus- but that is a story for another time.

The boy's leggy stride, which was quite awkward by his standards due to an incessant spring in his step that no amount of practice was going to remove, brought him up a ramp and through a gate into Emerald Ward, one of the more affluent areas in Noxus. Situated close to the famed Ivory Ward market and a stone's throw from the high-walled, private residences of several Noxian politicians, the Ward was ideal for those who sought to see the wealthy and influential members of High Command, but did not have enough money to know the aforementioned politicians personally. It was an excellent location for namedroppers and people who had links to the darker side of Noxus, but the boy didn't know that. Not yet at least.

Here, his plain clothing earned a couple of stares, but then again this was Emerald Ward. When one is surrounded by guardsmen who worked for particularly influential men, a boy and his odd burden are easily ignored. He squeezed himself past a gate, creeping through alleyway after alleyway until he came to a walled residence. Dried branches covered the cracked wall; the fence atop it was made of cast-iron.

The house itself was manned by scowling gargoyles and gaping faces that expelled water during the rains. The roof was made of deep purple slate, layered on top of each other like a pinecone. Candlelight emanated from the numerous glass windows, the latter also being a luxury in a place where most of the populace lived underground.

The boy stared up at the walls for a moment, perhaps considering that climbing was not an option where the fence could easily impale him. Instead, he skirted around the walls until he found what he was looking for: a postern gate, rusted and overwhelmed by black thorny bushes from years of disuse. With practiced ease, the burly teenager ducked under the branches, never making a sound where the thorns bit into his flesh. Bleeding in some places, he laid a hand on the gate and planted his feet on the ground, pulling at it with all his might.

Contrary to its appearance, the gate swung open easily. He had been here before, oiling the hinges and coaxing movement from metal long inert. So it was clear that he had planned _this_  far at least. Still holding his strange burden, he pushed his bulk past the small opening- a marvel, really- and landed in a fertilizer pile. Now, other people would've been bothered by that fact, because aside from the disgusting, gut-wrenching smell, the pile had maggot-ridden fruits and earthworms crawling this way and that. It did not bother the boy. He merely pulled a worm from his hair and set it down back into the soft earth.

He spread the rocks on the pile and took some time packing the sharp rocks in balls of moist earth. Once he had gathered a sizable amount, he looked up at a particular window, lifted his hand and then threw the sharpest rock in his arsenal that wasn't yet incorporated into a fertilizer missile.

Now, under normal circumstances, glass would be able to resist the missile. It was good Noxian glass, made from the black sand near the swamplands. Tempered right, it could resist an arrow or a bullet. However, this family was not that wealthy, and when they had the house built, the windows and its glass were the least of their worries. So when it was faced with a thrown, sharp volcanic rock, the glass was about as durable as paper. Needless to say, it broke, and the shards scattered everywhere.

Shouts emerged from the house. The boy was still in the fertilizer pile, holding onto the first of his disgusting missiles. When a head emerged at the windowsill, the boy squinted up at him. It was not until he saw blonde hair and a blue ribbon that he took aim and let loose. The pressed ball hit the blonde teenager right on the forehead. Decaying matter splattered everywhere, the sharp rock cut deep. The blonde let out a scream, his hand clapped to his bleeding face.

Other people came to the window now, and the boy fired away. If the sharp rocks didn't do their work, the decaying earth did. It wasn't long before he ran out of missiles. By then, the screaming had reached a fever-pitch in the house. The corner of the boy's thin lip quirked upward in a rare smile. He turned his back and would've escaped through the gate again, but at that moment, fate was not with him.

A hand closed on his collar and pulled him out of the heap. Disoriented, the boy's face settled into a snarl the moment he realized who had pulled him out. The blonde boy, his face bloody and his clothes stinking as much as his was, was screaming at him.

"You!" The blonde boy's fist, laden with a large ruby-studded ring, connected with his nose. There was a sharp crack and a river of red. The boy's teeth slipped, and he almost bit into his own tongue from the force. Shaking his head like a dog and raising his hands, he did his best to protect his face and head as the blows rained down.

The boy was used to being hit. It was a thing of life for someone less certain of their position in society. He stiffened his body and endured. The blonde boy was not used to giving punches. Soon enough, he screamed when he broke his own wrist on the black-haired youth's jaw.

The black-haired boy was covered in decaying leaves and dirt. As for war wounds, his nose was broken. He could taste his own blood on his tongue. Slowly, he lowered his hands, surveying his opponent. The blonde boy was still screaming at him, his hand in a disturbing angle. Tears were gathering at the corners of his eyes.

The black-haired boy drew his fist back and smashed the other child's face in.

"Tell me you don't deserve that," He sneered. It would've been an imposing, deciding statement- if only his voice didn't crack. Puberty was a bitch when one was trying to make an example of someone. "Go on."

"Fuck off. You're a whore's son, Darius." The blonde boy snapped. "And your fucking brother's a queer." His voice was also cracking, so it was almost comedic to listen to the both of them. They were two children trying to be adults, in a world where adults and children were about as similar as a bird was to a fish.

Darius spat in the blonde boy's eye, eliciting a scream. " **Fuck you**." He snarled out as he kicked the other boy in the groin for good measure. The other boy shrieked at a pitch too high for his voice as Darius jabbed a finger in the kid's direction. "If I fucking catch you talking shit about my family again, Adrian, I'm going to wipe the floor with your face and send your teeth to your own fucking father."

"Or else what?" Adrian, the youngest son of Maynard de Croix, managed to squeeze out a smile even though his entire frame shook with the shock of having his jewels kicked. Blood, tears and saliva pooled at the edges of his mouth- he made a disturbing sight. "You don't know  _who_  or  _what_  the hell you're dealing with. You don't know anything. You're just stupid street trash that can talk big and hit hard- fucking cannon fodder."

"I know exactly what  _I'm_  dealing with," Darius shot back- the very picture of childish bravado with his puffed out chest and bloody knuckles. "I'm dealing with a worthless fifth son who can't bite worth shit. Whatever you've got, I'll take it. Whatever shit you can dream up, I'll fucking top it, so bring it on."

If Adrian could've turned a darker shade of puce from his rage, he would have. As it was, he let out a ferocious hiss as he launched himself at the heavier boy. In his free hand, he gripped the volcanic rock that Darius had thrown at his face.

Adrian moved quickly. He was too fast for Darius to anticipate where he had to be to avoid the blow. Suddenly, there was heat over his left eye, and then a rush of warmth over his cheeks. Darius staggered back and clapped a hand over his face, making a disgruntled noise. It was as if a mouse had just prodded a lion with a needle. An annoying blow, one that only delayed the inevitable beating for Adrian, but it was still a blow nonetheless.

Grinning victoriously, the white of his eyes and teeth disturbingly visible under the black dirt and blood that covered his face, Adrian gripped the bloody rock in his fist. "I almost feel sorry for you. I'll make you fucking  **regret**  saying that to me- that fucking family you're so proud of? That little piece-of-shit hole in the ground you call a home? Hold on to it as long as you can, because I'm going to-"

Deciding that the other boy had talked enough, Darius kicked the other child in the face. By now, there was a great noise outside the walls. The constables were at the gates. Giving the squirming form one last kick in the ribs, Darius turned tail and fled. His hand was still clapped over his bleeding brow as Adrian's howls of pain filled his ears.

Far off into the future, an older Darius would think on Adrian's words and curse his younger self for being too stupid to think, for not considering what he had just done. But that is not _now_.

Now was this: in a small culvert some distance away from the walled place where he beat Adrian de Croix's face in, Darius washed his face and gingerly probed at his broken nose. The bruises would heal, as they always did, but there was no way to hide the afternoon's latest acquisitions from his parents. At the very least, he didn't want to bother them with mending his nose, so Darius pulled out a wrapped up object from his pocket and set it on a nearby brick. It was a mirror- to be more precise, it was the shard of one.

It had come from a broken mirror he found a few weeks ago from a storm drain near Ivory Ward after a particularly nasty monsoon season. Despite having gone through hell, the mirror's faux gold frame was still beautiful to look at, and so he had given it to his mother so he could see her smile. He still kept the shard with him for two reasons: to look around corners with, and then to stab someone if they got on his bad side. He could've stabbed Adrian with the shard, but then again that would be cheating. The use of rocks was already a bit too cowardly for him, but then again, he had only planned to cause property damage and to stink up the other boy's bedroom with gobs of fertilizer.

_Still, it was nice,_  Darius reflected,  _that I was able to pummel Adrian to bits._  He had planned on delivering his message of 'leave my family alone' by defacing Adrian's front yard through the clever use of dog excrement and some lamp oil, but beating the hell out of the other boy in his own yard was fine too- even if he did get chewed out in the process.

He used the mirror shard now to squint at his reflection, and to take stock of his wounds. He had never been handsome- his father was best described as 'doughty' and his mother, as much as he loved her, was about as plain as the wallpaper on the walls in the noble houses she served in- so he never felt that his facial features was his best asset. Even with that preconception, the face that stared back at him was absolutely mortifying. The yellow and purple bruises on his cheeks and jaw were beginning to make themselves known. His lip had split and his nose was a smashed mess, but it was the great jagged slash over his brow, narrowly missing his eye, which made him reel back from his own reflection.

"Stupid." Darius muttered to himself as he soaked his shirt in some rainwater and dabbed at his face. It was an offense against hygiene, but he was made of sterner stuff. The twelve year old repeated the mantra over and over, wincing each and every time he pressed too hard. He ran his tongue over his teeth and the inside of his mouth and made dissatisfied noises under his breath when he tasted his own blood.

"Stupid," He repeated to himself, though this time the words came out slurred and heavy from his swollen lip. He looked up at the sky, at the rapidly sinking sun, and cursed under his breath. He was late. People were expecting him back home, and he still hadn't gotten the goat's cheese his mother had wanted him to get earlier that day.

Cursing to himself again, he wrapped up the shard in cloth and jammed it into his pocket. He stood up shakily and stumbled off to where he knew the night market would be starting in less than an hour. Regardless of his wounds, he had only one thing in his mind, the object that required his utmost attention as of the moment: goat's cheese.

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:** It's a slow start- but then again I wanted to show how Darius was  _before_. He knows his strengths and he sticks to them, and he doesn't hesitate to use it on other people when they piss him off- regardless of who they are. Typical bruiser.


	3. Padre Nostro, Madre Nostra

_"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,_

_"You are wasting your strength with building here;_

_Your journey will end with the ending day,_

_You never again will pass this way;_

_You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide,_

_Why build this bridge at evening tide?"_

_The builder lifted his old gray head;_

_"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,_

_"There followed after me to-day_

_A youth whose feet must pass this way._

_This chasm that has been as naught to me_

_To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;_

_He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;_

_Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!"_

**The Bridge Builder (Will Allen Dromgoole)**

* * *

**THREE WEEKS LATER...**

Compared to the very first boy described in this entire dreary monologue, this next boy probably would have been a musician if the universe had been kinder: his mother loved to listen to music and encouraged it in her offspring, but their family hardly had enough money to send them to school, let alone enroll the artistic child into a conservatory. Perhaps, if he had been born in Demacia or if High Command had placed as much emphasis on the arts as it did to the military, maybe he would've become a wonderful pianist. As it was, the younger boy had to make do with what he had.

And he did not have much. Where his brother was powerfully built, like a compact bear, Draven seemed to be made of limbs. His lankier frame, while infinitely more flexible than his brother's immovable mass, was less inclined to withstand punishment. His father's blood still ran true in his unruly hair, sharp beak nose and square jaw, but the rest of him took after his mother: with her dark brown hair, smaller body and long, elegant limbs. Three years his brother's junior, his mind was still fluttering in the skies- dreaming of a day when he would be going on adventures to slay Demacian dragons or on expeditions to find fool's gold. That is to say, he smiled and laughed more often than his brother, and found joy in the smaller things. Life was that simple for him.

There was a smile on his face now; as he watched his father and older brother go over the niceties of splitting logs in the smallish space that served as their family room. He was seated on one of four chairs next to the dining table. Close by, his mother was preparing dinner in the little alcove she called her kitchen, the smoke of the cooking fire daintily creeping up the wall and into a small ventilation shaft above her head. Really, it was about as wide as she could spread her elbows, but when one made barely enough each day to feed two growing boys and a husband besides, one learned to tolerate cramped kitchens.

There was a room off to the side where the four of them shared two beds and one dresser. The walls were made of bare rock, as their residence was carved from the very earth itself, and bore no decorations except for a single massive battle-axe that was mounted over their parent's bed. It was about as wide as Darius' forearm, as long as Draven's leg and probably weighed more than the two siblings combined. At some point in time, the weapon would have been sharp enough to split hairs, but there was a great break on the axe head from where the boys' father had hacked off a Demacian's armored limbs, and time had whittled away at the rest of the cutting edge until it was not good for anything- except maybe as a reminder of times long gone.

The notched battle-axe belonged to their father Hystaspes, veteran of a Rune War and a distinguished man who fought in numerous engagements, even making the ultimate sacrifice by giving his leg to secure a Noxian victory. In some circles, he could've been considered as handsome when he was younger, but now his face was too scarred to be considered anything but hideous. His black beard, as ragged and unkempt as the hair underneath the cloth skull cap he wore, hid the worst of his disfigurement. He was broad-shouldered, tightly packed with muscle and somewhat hunched over thanks to his previous military service, and walked lopsidedly due to his wooden leg. Despite his infirmity, he gave off a certain air- that of someone who didn't care for how other people perceived him, so long as other people did not directly offend him.

Compared to the aristocratic ladies of Noxus, their mother was not physically attractive, but she was not exceedingly ugly either. Athenais had close-set eyes, a small nose and pert lips. She was not too tall, nor was she too short. Like her youngest, she had long limbs and a lithe frame- even after two children and some twenty years of marriage. There are only a few words to properly define someone like her, with such a plain face and average height and build. If one did not specifically try to find her, one would forget her. The best way to properly describe Athenais, if one asked the boys, simply was ' _mother'_. She was the very embodiment of the word, if that made any sense at all.

There was the question of their mother's military service, of course. Conscription was the rule in the city-state, and even women were not an exception. There was a time when Darius had worked the courage to ask her what she had done before she had met their father. Unlike Hystaspes, who regaled his firstborn with battle stories and displayed every war wound for the child's benefit, she chose instead to smile down at her eldest, and to silence his question by patting his cheek with one hand and telling him to check on his new baby brother. Even after Draven had grown up a bit- moving from cloth diapers to hand-me-down britches-she had never said much about her service to the state. When the children had gotten too insistent, their father mentioned offhandedly that she had more guts than he ever did.

Needless to say, when one's parents are so keen on keeping something a secret, one should generally obey. The boys never asked again.

The two of them made an odd pair now: the woman who could have been beautiful and the man who would never be physically whole. It was oddly appropriate, considering what sort of people their two children would grow into. After time, a Rune War and two children had their way with them, somehow, Hystaspes and Athenais had managed and endured- and it was a relationship their offspring would envy to the end of their days.

His father and brother's discussion fading into unneeded noise, Draven's eyes wandered over to where the great black bearskin rug would've been on the floor if his parents had never sold it. Darius still wistfully talked about it at times, and the younger sibling had been regaled with many a tale of the times that his brother used to wrap himself in it like an Ionian spring roll. Needless to say, the rug had been his brother's favorite thing, one of many that they had to let go when he had been born.

For all its starkness now, the dwelling had been better decorated once. His father had his medals and commendations hanging on the walls, and his mother even had a painting or two of beautiful imaginary landscapes. When their mother had learned that she was pregnant again, however, she had coaxed her husband to part with his belongings. They had been breaking even with just the two of them, but a second child would put a strain on the family budget. When Draven was born on a wonderful spring morning, therefore, the luscious rug and the paintings were sold off.

One could only do so much before financial troubles began anew. When Draven was three, his father's medals were melted down and sold for scrap. The hard-earned commendations were bartered off to buy dried meat, soup base and lamp oil during a particularly nasty winter when the two siblings had a case of pneumonia. Darius had been working as an insect harvester and ochre miner since Draven's fifth birthday to augment their income, and had only recently moved to logging.

If one asked for his professional opinion, Hystaspes would say that more people in Noxus died from falling trees than from drowning in the moat. Contrary to popular belief, logging was not an easy occupation, as simple as the entire concept of cutting wood seemed. In order to become a successful woodcutter, there were countless things to remember: an escape path had to be planned out and created, lest the tree one wanted to topple fell instead on oneself; the notch that would direct the tree's fall had to be placed correctly, with thought given to the degree that the tree was leaning; bucking the tree, or cutting it up into smaller pieces, required much thought because cutting too much or too little would waste valuable wood.

"Here, you set it up like so," Hystaspes stated. He borrowed a log from where it had been stacked up with the rest of the firewood and had it stand up on the floor. The wood had been split already, and it was only a matter of imagination to pretend that the log was still whole. "If you bucked it right, you should be able to get it up on its' end like so. If it's got a knot in it, you don't split it. Sharpen your axe to make a clean break when you split. You follow?"

Darius bobbed his head. It had been three weeks since he had come into the dwelling grasping a paper bag filled with goat cheese. Draven had seen him done stranger entrances- the day his brother found a yordle skull and wore it on his fist as he entered was particularly memorable- but that day was etched in his memory, and for all the right reasons.

At the time, the boys' father had described his eldest son's face as ' _looking like crow bait_ '. Draven had to agree- Darius' face had swollen so much that he could hardly eat anything for dinner that day, and then two days later his cuts became infected. Hystaspes ' firstborn then spent the worst part of the last two weeks in bed raving in a fever dream about how he was going to one day grow up to destroy everything and everyone with one stroke of his hand. Draven didn't believe him of course. It was simply the fever talking. After all, no one could be  _that_  powerful.

Now for the most part, the small cuts and bruises had healed to faint little lines and splotches on his flesh but there was still a bandage wrapped over Darius' eye for the scar, and there was still a faint pinkish and sweaty sheen to his cheeks- hinting to a fever that still lurked underneath his skin.

 _That scar,_  Draven thought,  _looks really cool now that the rest of Bro's face doesn't look like ground up meat_.

"Green wood is harder to cut into, so forget it." Their father rumbled on as Darius gave nondescript nod after nod. "As for splitting- you have to throw a bit of your weight into it. Not from your arms though- you'll hurt yourself. Don't just throw yourself at it either- that's stupid. Stand with your legs apart a bit, raise the axe as far as you could go without missing, aim for the center and keep your arms straight like so. The trick is to have momentum, and if you get it right in one blow to avoid damaging the wood, good for you. If you don't get it right and you hack the poor thing to bits, it'll sell for less. You would've wasted more energy chopping away at it like a madman besides. So. Aim well, and don't hurt yourself. Pretty simple."

Utterly bored with the conversation, Draven idly swung his legs up and down, kicking at the nearest table leg in a fit of boredom.  _Thump, thump, thump_ \- the noises went relatively unnoticed. He repeated the pattern six more times before Darius leveled a glare at him.

From the amount of annoyance in his good eye, Draven surmised that his older brother was peeved but not  _too_  annoyed. That was fine with him. Ever the jester who enjoyed being the center of attention, Draven conspiratorially reached forward and tapped on the thin wood desk that served as their study and dining table, a smile on his lips and a joke ready on his tongue if they wanted to talk to him.

As before, nobody noticed him except for his brother. Darius was giving him the Look now- the glower that usually accompanied a cuff to the head when his older brother was done with whatever it was he was doing. The death glare would've been super effective, if Dar's eye wasn't covered and if his hair had not been sticking in every single direction thanks to the bandage wrapped around his eye. Knocking out a nonsensical beat, it took maybe three minutes before their mother reached over and rapped Draven smartly over the knuckles with a ladle.

Sheepishly, the youngest son flashed his mother a gap-toothed smile and an innocent look. She exhaled softly and watched him with something like exasperation, a finger on her lips as she gestured to Darius and Hystaspes. Draven rolled his shoulders in a juvenile display of defiance, and then almost laughed when his mother stuck her tongue out at him.

The rare scene of idyllic life in Noxus was broken the moment someone rapped on their door. Interrupted from their in-depth logging talk, Hystaspes eyed the door as if his gaze would set it on fire. It was nine in the evening, and who would bother knocking on their door this late- even if they did live in Sub-Level 12? "Who is it?" He boomed.

"Maynard de Croix," a crisp voice said from the other side. Heavily accented, the words carried a threat that only Darius could perceive as of the moment. Not surprisingly, the eldest son stood up in alarm, sending the practice log flying to the side. He shook his head vehemently at his father, pleading with him silently to not answer the door, but Hystaspes was a man who was not easily swayed, and his firstborn's reaction had made him curious.

So the war veteran pushed himself off the floor with effort and walked to the doorway, his wooden leg rapping every odd step on the cold stone floor while Darius shook like a lamb that was being led to the slaughter. He was still staring at his father's back when his mother gave him a calming pat on the head and whispered out a request to move Draven to the bedroom for now.

Still terrified, but now reminded of his duty and unspoken pledge to never appear weak in front of his kid brother, Darius clamped down on his fear, bit his lip and scurried off to do his mother's bidding.

"Come on," Darius said as he pulled the nine year old from the chair. The lie did not pass easily from his tongue, but somehow, he managed. "Dad's got visitors."

"If it's  _his_  visitor, why are  _you_  acting weird?" Draven remarked flatly, in the typically shameless way of baby brothers to point out the  _uncomfortably_  obvious.

"Because, reasons!" Darius snapped back. He didn't want to tell Draven about the entire episode with Adrian de Croix. He much preferred to let the younger one keep the modified lie he had fed him three weeks earlier- that he had found a yordle spy in Emerald Ward and had beaten it up in a fair fight.

Draven remained totally unconvinced, but this was a side of his brother he had never seen before. His brother, if one asked Draven's  _very_  expert opinion, was panicking about  _something_. But if this truly was a panicking Darius, something was going to happen that hadn't happened before.

In the future, when all was said and done, Draven would later do something rather drastic because his brother lied to him, but this Draven was still so young, curious and  _utterly_  trusting in the one person who loomed bigger in his life than both his parents combined. He let himself be herded in the bedroom, and then obediently sat on the bed with a promise on his mind to not go outside and to stay quiet, like a good little boy.

Darius rushed back into the living room. Maynard de Croix looked much like his son- lanky build, blonde hair, blue eyes, hawksbill nose and wide mouth. He was equally pampered- his nails were clean and polished, his hair was brushed and tied back with a red ribbon. His cravat, held together with a gold-framed ruby pendant, was absolutely flawless. He wore knee-high black boots over white linen trousers and a red waistcoat over a white silk shirt. Over the entire ensemble, he wore a black coat festooned with gold braid and polished brass buttons. In his gloved hands he held a gold-handled cane made of ebony. In comparison, Darius, his father and his mother were all wearing simple homespun clothes in varying shades of brown and grey.

To a casual observer then, Maynard was a god amongst heathens, and he treated them all as such. He was currently locked in an argument with Hystaspes, and Darius caught the last segment of conversation as he reentered the room.

"-My son is dead from an infected cut given to him by  _your_  spawn, and you expect  _me_  to let him  _live_?" The aristocrat gestured at Darius with his cane. "Why are you so surprised? Are you that stupid of a man to not ask where your tramp of a son spends his time?"

Darius felt mildly offended at the words. It was not  _his_  fault that Adrian the weakling couldn't handle the fever that came with the cuts to his face, but- and he realized this very late, it  _was_  his fault that the cuts were there in the first place. So, in the three weeks since he had scuffled with the other boy, he  _had_  killed Adrian de Croix, even if it was through some bizarre accident of nature. Up until that point, he had never killed anyone before. He hadn't even gotten close to maiming anyone prior to that scuffle with Adrian de Croix. The first stirrings of fear came when he realized that Maynard de Croix was crying for  _his_  blood.

Compared to his eldest son, who had stiffened like a corpse inflicted with rigor mortis, Hystaspes was still hale and shaking his head calmly. The man had been a legend on the battlefield in his time for being eerily calm under pressure. Now, faced with evidence that his firstborn had accidentally killed another child, he let no expression escape his features other than that of composed attention.

"I didn't mean to imply that," The woodcutter said. "We cannot pay the  _wergild._ Blood is the only thing we have left, and and I want you to take mine."

Almost Freljordish in its barbarity, blood debts were an archaic option in a city-state that prided itself on having rule of law- but compensation in the form of death  _had_  been the Noxian way for centuries. The practice of demanding monetary compensation, or  _wergild_ , had only emerged recently.

The aforementioned boy looked wildly at his father, wholesale panic flashing in his eyes. What was happening? Why was he volunteering himself? What about his mother? What about Draven? What about  _him_? And then when he realized what his father was aiming to do, Darius' blood ran cold. He wanted to do something,  _anything_  at all to stop his parents from sealing their fate, but if his parents were so set on it, nothing in the world was going to bend to the desires of a remorseful twelve year old boy.

"Would you take me instead?" His father asked again, seemingly oblivious to his son's reactions.

"I volunteer as well," Athenais piped up. Darius' shocked stare transferred to his mother. Like his father, she was nothing but calm. Her face showed no distress, her eyes gave off no fear. Her body was eerily still. She took her place next to her husband, and even had the gall to smile at Maynard de Croix's furious face.

"How dare you, you ground-dwelling peasants? To give me a choice between a cripple and a cheap whore?" Maynard de Croix said with a sneer. "If blood is the only thing you can offer me- very well! Give me  _both_  your lives, or I will take one of your sons. I will  **not**  settle for less."

"Fine." Hystaspes retorted without hesitation. "When?" The war veteran continued, eyebrow cocked up and his voice still as dominant as it had ever been.

"Wha-" Maynard's mouth snapped open as his eyes widened. Evidently he hadn't expected such a candid response.

The whole conversation had shifted pace now: Hystaspes had taken Maynard on his own ground,  _daring_  the cocky bastard across him to say the words that would change Darius for the rest of his life.

An older Darius looked back at this moment as his father's crowning achievement and greatest gift: Hystaspes had sacrificed his leg for Noxus, and now he was sacrificing himself and his wife to see to it that the life he had helped to create would live on. In any  _universe_ , in any  _world_ , in any  _plane_  that obeyed the laws of space  _and_  time- there is no greater act a father could ever do for his own son. By that same token, there is also no greater point in his life that Darius vehemently wished things had gone  _differently_.

As for the younger Darius, the Darius of  _now_ , there were no words to describe how  _he_  felt at the moment. If a picture could have been used instead to depict his mental turmoil, it would've been of black and red in streaks across blank canvas like blood from an arterial cut. He couldn't help but feel disgusted that Maynard had assumed Hystaspes would  _beg for mercy_. He was proud that his father had not bent his head, but now he was deathly afraid for his parents, for his brother and for himself.

Fear paralyzes when left to fester. Darius couldn't speak, let alone move a finger. The fear of being  _alone_  in the world, of being left to fend for himself and his brother without the bulwark of safety his parents had forged with their sacrifices, of being  _swallowed_  by the world and spat out- all of it was more than his twelve-year old mind could bear. If he had been any more unstable, he would have burst out in hysterical laughter.

Maynard had been caught off guard by the veteran's frank response, but when he realized what he had within his reach, a smile had slid over his hawkish features. He looked quite like the predatory bird with the way he was staring at the three of them. Metaphorically readying his talons to snare his seemingly ignorant prey, the aristocrat's next query was disturbingly mundane, considering that he had just orphaned two boys with one statement: "How long would it take to get your affairs in order?"

"A month." Again, there was no hesitation in his father's words. In fact, if Darius had been paying more attention, if he had not been mentally screaming and holding back a tide of panic and guilt, it was almost as if his father was  _enjoying_  his mortifying tirade with the younger noble. There was a cocky light in his eyes and a little tone in his voice that hinted he relished what he was doing as of the moment. "There isn't a lot."

"Agreed. I will have the papers sent tomorrow morning, and I will see you at the block in a month." Maynard said with a smirk. For him, he had achieved victory. In a month's time, his youngest son's ghost would see justice done, and then all would be right in the world.

For Darius, he had just watched his father sacrifice himself and their mother for  _his_  sake. In a month's time, the state of Noxus, and by extension, that of Runeterra would be decided.

Something else was going to happen in a month as well, but it was taking its time to hit him fully. Darius had been deadened by fear. His thoughts plodded as slowly as a glacier crawled down the side of a mountain. The eventual realization of what was going to happen in a month hit him in the same way: a grinding, inexorable wave that washed over his body and left him frighteningly cold.

 _I'm going to be an orphan on my birth day,_  Darius thought distantly.

He became vaguely aware of the fact that Maynard had left, and that his father had somehow been replaced by a man whose craggy features could've borrowed from a statue in the past second. Gone was the cocky confidence, the bulwark of tranquility he had adopted in the face of an outsider. His mother was eyeing him with concern, her brow furrowed with worry. The edge of his vision were too faint for him to properly focus on his brother- who was sneaking a look at the rest of the room and was wondering why everyone was so pale and wretched.

Haggard sobs emerged from his chest. His jaw locked tight, his teeth ground against each other. He screwed his eyes shut in a last-ditch attempt to stop himself, and commanded his body not to shake, because men did not cry.

But then again, he wasn't a man. Not yet.

He was just twelve, and he had just watched his father and mother volunteer to kill themselves in order to ensure his survival. It was all because of something that he had done in a fit of childish spite. His parents only had a month to live, to impart what knowledge and property there was left to give. There was no other person to blame in this entire incident except for himself. Everything could've been avoided if he had simply turned his head. His mother and father would still be alive. The scar would not be on his face. His brother would still be happy. If  _only_  he had not lashed out at the other boy. If only he had not been so impulsive, if only-

His thoughts overwhelmed him. As much as he tried, twin trails of heat spilled from the corners of his eyes, rolled over his cheeks and coalesced down his neck.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  It was a little strange writing about a crying Darius, but then again he's just twelve here. I also did my best to emphasize class disparity, and to show that there wasn't much one can do in the face of law backed with gold.

I tried to put across the idea that even if Noxus is a nation of strength, family is still important. I feel that Hystaspes and Athenais are your stereotypical Noxian parents: they both served in the military, but their work inevitably left them scarred- his father was handicapped and his mother undoubtedly saw and did some horrible things. Despite all of that, they try their hardest to be good parents to their children- not in the 'huggy, I love you' Demacian context.

Noxus is a nation that believes in strength and personal achievement after all: so I think that what is considered as good parenting in Noxus is to be a strong role model and to do your best to support or steer your child to greatness. Essentially then, what Hystaspes and Athenais are doing here is taking the flak for what Darius did- and that's fine for them because there's just no way to avoid the repercussion of Adrian de Croix's death. If they denied the charge, then it would show to Darius and Draven that they were being cowardly for not tackling the problem in the face-  _that_  would be bad parenting.


	4. Moving Pieces

_Pain and suffering. Give me the strength_

_to bear it, to enter those places where the_

_great animals are caged. And we can live_

_at peace by their side. A bride to the burden_

_that no god imposes but knows we have the means_

_to sustain its force unto the end of our days._

_For that is what we are made for; for that_

_we are created. Until the dark hours are done._

**The Acts of Youth (John Weiners)**

* * *

**THREE DAYS BEFORE...**

There are some philosophers who theorize that time is a dimension intrinsic to the universe, where events occur in sequence independent of other dimensions: _there_  was the past,  _here_  is the present and  _that_  is the future. Others perceive time not as a dimension, but as a process of thought through which humans sequence events: there  _was_  a past because there  _is_  a present; there  _will_  be a future because there  _is_  a present. Time, therefore, is not measurable in a concrete sense. It is constantly moving, constantly changing. What  _now_  is will be  _then_ , in the same way that what  _now_  is will  _be_.

If one's head is hurting, it would be easier to think of time as it  _is_ , and not as what white-haired men have defined it  _as_ , because those men have higher thought processes than an average human being. What is time to the average man then? The layman perceives time as something that is  _lost_ , as something that should be  _saved_. Men rush through life because they fear to  _waste_  time, thoroughly unaware of the singular truth that, that no matter how much they try, time will  _always_  be wasted.

What is a month? On average, it is 4 weeks, 30 days, 730 hours, 43,829 minutes or 2,592,000 seconds. Out of those numbers, 210 minutes per week would be spent in the bathroom, resulting in 840 minutes lost on an unavoidable biological process. Therefore, there is no real way to  _save_  time, unless one is a sorcerer named Zilean, in which case one exists outside of time and therefore there is no real point in debating on  _what_  time is or  _why_  it is called time- simply because one can see what  _will_  be, what  _should_  be and what  _can_  be.

But- the entire point of the aforementioned paragraphs is not to ramble  _about_  time or about the practicality of men being strapped to giant clocks. The point is to explain that no matter how much men try to  _save_  time, to  _treasure_  it and to make the most of it, it will  _always_  be lost. Darius and Draven's parents only had one month left to live. No matter how many hours the two boys spent with them, in the end, the day of the execution drew near… and then there was no more _time_.

Executions in Noxus were not grand public events  _yet_ , because the person who would become the Glorious Executioner was still a little boy who didn't want his mother to die, but it  _was_  prominent in society enough to be considered as something to watch if one was interested, and if one knew  _who_  was going to be axed for the day. The House of de Croix was well-known within Noxus, as one of their ancestors had been a famed General who had come very close to bringing Demacia to its knees. In contrast, Darius and Draven's family was about as important as a fly within one's porridge. Many years later, the brothers' names would be on everyone's mind, but in this day and age, they were nothing. They did not even have a House name to call their own, although the brothers would be granted one in the future.

What were House names? It was a system that Imperiosus, the first Grand General of Noxus, created and encouraged; he had been of the opinion that Noxus should remember those who contributed to her prestige and forget those that did nothing but bring her down with their indolence. If one bore a House name, then, it meant that one's ancestor had done something worthy of remembrance in the annals of Noxian history.

To clarify: when a person is born in Demacia, one is given a name and then one is identified with the family one was born into. Garen was born into the Crownguard family, and so his name straightaway was Garen Crownguard. In Noxus, where fatality rates were significantly much higher and where accomplishments, influence and intelligence reached father than the circumstances behind one's birth, to be given the Demacian equivalent of a surname and to be identified with a family, or a House, was a  _reward_ , and not a right. When they were children, Darius and Draven belonged to no House, and thus were not important to anyone except their own parents.

The headsman's platform had been set up in the middle of Emerald Ward. It was a massive, wooden thing made of newly cut pine; the old one had been covered with so many bloodstains that it would've been imprudent to execute people on it in a place like Emerald Ward. It could have been mistaken for a theatre stage, if it was not for the fact that there was a bloodstained wooden block and a wicker basket set up in the center.

As stated before, public executions were a cultural mainstay in Noxus. For a nation so fixated on death and prestige, there were certain customs and traditions involving a death that would be seen by all. For one, it was considered as dishonorable to be decapitated by guillotine, and therefore only prisoners were killed by it. A worse punishment, reserved for traitors and conspirators, was to be drawn and quartered while one was alive or burnt at the stake. Therefore, the gift of having a swift death was only granted to those with privilege, such as noblemen or individuals of some repute. When the time for their death came, they were given leeway to be executed by a sword, or by their own weapon.

Darius' crime had been to kill a man's youngest son. The approximate punishment, if the  _wergild_  had not been paid, was to torture him on a rack and then, after a long ceremonial monologue by Maynard on  _why_  Darius was a homicidal cur, to run him under the guillotine. However, there was no guillotine for today's execution, as much as Maynard had tried to have one set up. Hystaspes and Athenais still had some influence left, and they managed to secure for themselves a  _good_  death: the executioner of the day was none other than Urgot, the Headsman's Pride himself, and the weapon of choice was Hystaspes' own battle-axe, which had been taken off the wall and sharpened to a gleam especially for the occasion.

Hystaspes and his wife would die for his firstborn, but the war veteran had been of the opinion that there was no way in any existing hell he would be publically shamed by being executed with a guillotine. Only his treasured battle-axe would do, and only his oldest friend would be the one to perform the deed. The entire affair, which should have been somber and shameful if Maynard had gotten his way, gave off an oddly  _personal_  feel. Many in Runeterra would be mortified by the domesticity of it, but Noxus was a nation of warriors who considered it an honor to be beheaded by their friends.

Of course, it was easy to romanticize the entire affair by adding some element of dignity to it, but the fact of the matter remained that Darius and Draven were to be orphaned today. They had prepared as much as they could. Darius had taken to it more readily than his brother had, although it had taken some time, and coaxing from his father.

It had happened one afternoon, when there had only been two weeks left to their month of life. The old warrior had been sitting near the dining table, polishing his ancient battered armor. Having previously thought that his father had sold it off, Darius had been surprised to see the full set.

It was a fearsome ensemble and appeared to have been custom-made. The enormous spiked pauldrons, battered from years of service and subsequent neglect, were padded with cracked black leather inside. The breastplate had been a work of art in its day, with its sharp but elegant lines making the impression of coarse wolf fur. The vambraces, couters and rerebraces, large and thick enough to fully protect his father's brawny arms, bore the embossed lines in the same style, ending in what had been razor sharp spikes. Strangely enough, his father did not have any mailed gauntlets- perhaps he had preferred to use leather gloves instead to have a better grip on his axe. The spiked wolf motif continued throughout the rest of the pieces: from the tasset, which would have protected his father's hips, to the cuisse, poleyns, greaves and sabatons that would have encased his father's legs and feet in steel. It was rather awe-inspiring for Darius, but the closed helmet was what had burnt itself into his memory: it was the warped, demonic face of a snarling wolf.

"Dar, Could you get my axe from the wall?" Hystaspes had asked.

"Would you need it?" Still awed by the ancient armor, the question had run out of Darius' mouth before he even realized it.  _Of course_  his father wouldn't need his prized battle-axe where he was going. The executioner would probably just wrench it out of his father's twitching hands to sell for scrap once the grizzled man's head had rolled some distance away. When he imagined the entire scene, complete with the sound of the axe hitting flesh and the wet thump of a head rolling away, the imagery had made him want to vomit. Already green and sick to his stomach with what was to come; his pallid skin glistened with cold sweat.

Shamefaced, he had lowered his head as the guilt collapsed on top of his shoulders and made his lungs constrict. He wouldn't be weak. He wouldn't cry. It didn't help matters if he did. He had to think more, had to act less. The world was going to be colder and more difficult without his father to guide him through, without his mother to remind him to wait. It was just him and Draven now, and he had to be an example through the coming storm for someone who had never suffered in their entire life.

"Listen closely, boy." His father's voice then interrupted his musings. Darius had raised his head hesitantly.

What Hystaspes would say in the following hours would stay with Darius for the rest of his life.

"I didn't have long on this earth to teach you everything there was to living," The older man left his armor on the table and pulled his own axe from the wall mounting, drumming his fingers on the haft as he went on. "I would've liked to stay longer to see you go into the military like me, maybe marry a nice girl, have children of your own…"

His father made a strange noise- something between a sigh and a choke. Dark thoughts went through Darius' head again- maybe his father thought his own life was being wasted as well- but he forced himself to listen to the older man, to tune out the demented whispers that lurked at the edges of his mind.

"Hell, there are a lot of things that I still wanted to share with you. I've got a lot of anecdotes about making bad decisions- never go out drinking with Sion and Urgot for example- but I'm rambling again. Essentially, what's done has been done. There's just no way around it."

Somehow, Darius managed to mumble out an affirmative. He agreed, but his heart wasn't into anything at the moment. All he wanted was for things to go back to the way they had been before, but as his father had said, what had been done  _had_  been done. He could mope all he wanted, but there wouldn't be any point to it. He couldn't afford to feel sorry for himself or for his brother anymore.

"Don't disrespect me, Dar." His father's voice rumbled off to his side. "Look at me."

Unsure of what to do, and wondering half-heartedly if his father was going to start beating him for indulging in his self-pity, Darius mustered what mental and emotional strength he had left. He lifted his head from where he had been staring morosely at the floor and looked straight into his father's eyes.

His father's eyes were bright and full of life underneath his marred flesh and bushy beard. It was almost as if the older man was just going to work for the day, but that was an idle fantasy. The reality was that his parents were going to their deaths in order to repay the blood debt he had accidentally created. The only other alternative was to present himself as  _wergild_ , but  _that_  was not an option for Hystaspes and Athenais.

"You think it's tough now," His father put the axe on the table, his gaze still locked onto his son's. "But maybe it'll get easier. Maybe it'll get even harder. We just don't know. Life is strange that way. Just remember, Dar, as you get older everything starts to pile up. You've got all those things you did when you were younger, all the mistakes you never should've done if you only did so and so- we all have things like that, but I don't want you to dwell on them. You could lose a lot of time, just  **thinking**  about  _what could have been,_  and not focus on  **what is**. Do you understand?"

"No sir." Darius replied wretchedly. Even though he did understand somewhat, he didn't want their conversation to end. It was true that he had spent the last month of his parents' lives running his mind over his long-term plans as they readied for their execution, and it was true that his thoughts had turned more than once to how in the world he was going to fend for himself and his baby brother. Where was he going to get more money? How was he going to keep Draven in school? Was there a way to avoid destroying his baby brother's dreams? Should Draven work nights too? Was the military really the best option? If only he hadn't been stupid enough to-

"When a man makes a decision, he must learn to live with what he has done." Hystaspes tapped his finger on his firstborn's forehead once for each and every word he had said, as if sensing that his son was about to start thinking about alternate possibilities again. "That's the only thing that matters. Keep it in your heart and never forget it. You have to understand that what you did to the de Croix boy demanded an appropriate response from the law- and it's written in stone, son. It doesn't consider how old you are or how much you know of it. Breaking the law is breaking the law, and we must learn to live with our failures in the same way that we parade our successes."

Darius didn't reply. He didn't know what he could've said. Unable to return the man's fearless gaze, the twelve year old's eyes went back to the stone floor. His father crossed his arms over his chest, standing with his feet apart and towering over him.

"You're afraid." Hystaspes stated flatly.

Darius nodded. There was no point in lying, His father read him perfectly.

His father reached down and pulled his head up. "Of what?"

Darius's eyes swept over to the bedroom, where he knew Draven was sleeping. His dear baby brother, his mother's favorite- who did his hardest to make everyone laugh, who made himself the jester, who didn't know how the world worked, who trusted  _everyone_ -

"The future?" Hystaspes guessed. "Being alone with your brother?"

The twelve year old nodded. He was expecting his father to tell him that he was right, because it  _was_  a big deal, but he blinked in surprise when Hystaspes gave a disgruntled snort.

"There is nothing to be afraid about," He said candidly. "It's the  _future_. It will happen, even if you don't want it to happen, even if you're afraid of something that's going to happen."

Darius swallowed nervously.

There was only one way for his lesson to stick. Fed up with his son's attitude, Hystaspes slapped him on the cheek. It was strong enough to sting and to wake him up, but never enough to leave a massive handprint on his firstborn's face. "You can't feel sorry for yourself all the time, and you can't run from things that frighten you. That is  **cowardice**. Never forget that cowardice  _cripples_." The veteran growled out. "Time, and the rest of the world, won't wait for you to get over your fear. If you show that you're afraid, if you're unsure or if you're torn in indecision, the world will punish you for it. After all, life is not kind. It does not care. It will do everything it can to kill you, and Noxus is at the center of all of that. Take my words to heart, Dar: what you do not kill will slaughter you; what you do not bare your teeth at will rise against you; what you do not take it by the throat will trample you under its heel."

Rubbing his cheek ruefully, Darius realized what his father was trying to do. Hystaspes had never been particularly eloquent, even at home. For him to be talking so much, it meant that his father was in the mood to do so, and the older man would probably never speak to him in this manner again. Now then was the time to find answers.

"How you can just sit there and… polish your armor and act as if it's nothing?" Darius ventured slowly, bravely trying to ask what had always been on his mind for the past few weeks. "And the day before that, you were talking with Mother on how you were going to get your friend to act as executioner. How do you… deal with something like that?"

His father gave a full-bellied laugh, hinting at the gaming mood he had and at the gravity of the situation for him to be so candid and talkative. "Dar, everyone is going to die at some point. You've seen it happen in the streets. You've been watching the bodies float in the moat since you were about as high as my knee. You can't expect your parents to be invincible."

Darius bit his lip. He didn't, but then again children had their dreams.

"We're all going to die in the end; it's  _how_  you die that ultimately matters." Hystaspes drummed his fingers on the tabletop in thought. Darius was about to ask what he was considering, when the older man decided to continue talking. "But  _what_  is a good death? How will you know if your death was worthwhile? Is it better to die from illness or to die from old age?" The old warrior made a disgusted noise as he waved his cleaning cloth back and forth. "Neither will do. To die from illness is to admit weakness, and to die from old age is to settle into sloth… but dying from the sword, wielded by your oldest friend?"

His father's eyes gleamed in the firelight, the beginnings of a cocky smile tugging at his lip. "Aye.  _That_  is a good death."

It is normally difficult for well-adjusted children to imagine a world that hates them with every fiber of its being, but that is what Hystaspes had said. As if sensing that he was becoming too dark for his son, he changed his tone.

"But the world is not entirely empty." Hystaspes mused out loud. "There are those like my comrades-in-arms, who took blows for me in the heat of battle more than once. The men who served in my unit still acknowledge me as their commander. There are others still who never doubted me. So there is brotherhood, loyalty and trust left in the world, but those examples are too common, too necessary in the military to go without…" He tapped his fingers on the table again before he found what he was looking for.

"Ah, love is a strong word, and it might be confusing for you because you're so young, but I would say that there is still some love in the world. Your mother and I did our best to teach you of it. What love we did not give to each other, we did our best to give you- but make no mistake, Dar. We gave you what was left. Time, and what we did with it, took the rest away."

It had not been as easy to temper the youngest child. Draven had never known hardship. Everything the family had done had been to ensure that his life would remain relatively untouched by grief. But now, there was no real way to tell the youngest child that it was time for him to grow up. The little lie Darius had given his brother had been debunked in front of him, but they hadn't seen fit to tell him the entire truth. Draven only knew this: that their family had attracted the ire of House de Croix, and that his parents now had to pay the blood price. One can say that ' _one should not lie'_. After all, lying to a loved one is not easy. It takes a certain thickness of face to do so, and a level of believability in one's words.

At the same time, however, telling Draven the truth would have shattered him. His entire family had done their utmost best to ensure that his lot in life was almost always better than theirs, and for him to lose his parents to the simple fact that Darius could not control his own temper would have destroyed his relationship with his older brother completely. Eventually of course, the truth would out, but that is for later.

Willingly destroying his relationship with his younger brother was far from Darius' mind at the moment. Dressed in his best clothes, the eldest son was standing on the platform and watching the gathering crowd with a stony face. His father, clad in his old battle armor, stood to his right. Cradling his fearsome demon-faced helm under his arm, Hystaspes spoke with Urgot and Sion, his old military commander, in easy tones. The spike-laden metal had been through a rough time while it had been in storage, and still had the bangs and dents from the last time it had seen service. The cape he wore was full of holes and was no longer as red as it had been. Despite it all, the armor shone bright as if it was brand new.

Darius had felt his stomach turn when he first saw the two men who were his father's friends. Urgot was hobbling sedately on wooden legs and sporting scythe-blades for hands. He seemed to be made out of other people's body parts, as he had more stitches and staples on his discolored and sickly skin than anything Darius had ever seen. Sion was similarly disfigured, but he had not suffered any loss of limbs yet.

His mother, who had chosen to wear a simple white dress for the occasion, was standing off to the side. Draven was desperately clutching at her skirts, tears welling up in his eyes and threatening to fall down his cheeks. Darius would have been there as well, if Hystaspes had not talked to him all those weeks ago, but he wouldn't have been crying. He didn't have any more tears to give.

Still, he was not entirely emotionless, and it was with a heart that was steadily breaking underneath a forced mask that Darius listened in to their conversation.

"I don't want you to go," Draven mumbled through his tears. "Why do you have to go?"

"Not all decisions are ours to make, dear one," Athenais said soothingly as she lifted her son's face to meet hers. Ignoring the trail of runny mucus and tears, she rubbed noses with him fondly and pressed her lips to his forehead. "But what one can do towards an irrevocable fate is to face it with a smile."

Hystaspes, perhaps noticing that Draven was showing weakness in front of a gathering crowd, gestured to Darius to keep the crying boy away from prying eyes. Darius nodded his head and wordlessly picked his brother up.

Draven, it seemed, was catching on. His sobs gradually stopped as Darius carried him down the stairs and behind the headsman's platform, but the hiccups that followed still wracked his smaller frame and made it seem like he was still crying.

"Are you going to put me away again?" Draven asked his brother sadly.

"I'm just waiting for you to stop crying." Darius replied as he set his brother down on the wooden steps.

"I'm not crying." Draven reached forward and pulled on Darius' best shirt, using that to wipe his face and blow his nose. "You're mean."

Resigned to the fact that he probably was not going to be able to salvage his shirt, Darius patted his brother's back and retorted. "The world is mean."

Draven shook his head adamantly. "Mama said the world tries to be fair."

Darius thought about what his brother had said long and hard. He loved his mother, with all of his heart, and he knew that she did as well. She would not be dying for him if she didn't. Still, Draven was her favorite, and love might have clouded her words.  _But,_  Darius realized,  _mother is right. For now._

"If this is fairness, then we must have done something very wrong." He said softly.

Because he  _did_  do something wrong.

And the world was simply being fair.

By the time the execution was scheduled to commence, there was a mob gathering at the platform. Darius had done his best to clean his brother's face and sent him off to Hystaspes. It was his turn to be with his mother now, but it seemed that he didn't have her full attention.

She was staring off at a distant house. It looked like all the other houses next to it- high walls, scowling gargoyle faces, purple slate roof and candlelit windows. There was a balcony on that particular house, and there was a red-haired man clad in a simple white shirt and black trousers standing in it, a child with the same fiery locks not older than the age of two cradled in his hands.

When he looked at his mother, Darius was shocked to find that there was a strange happiness in her eyes. He stared at her in askance, wondering if her sanity finally gave way in the face of her imminent demise. She saw her child gaping at her out of the corner of her eye and laughed, cocking her head slightly towards the red-haired man at his balcony.

"It is Commander du Couteau." His mother said to him.

Darius blinked. He glanced back at the man, even as his mother was speaking under her breath.

"You do me a great honor, my lord. It is more than a lowly agent could ever ask for." Though Darius was quite certain his mother's voice was too soft to even be heard beyond the headsman's platform, he could have sworn he saw the red-haired man smile- if it could have been called a smile. An almost imperceptible light ran through his eyes when she had spoken, though his facial expression never changed.

It took maybe three minutes for him to fully realize what had happened, and by then Darius had stiffened in shock at the acknowledgement. She had never said anything of her military service, but her words had made him realize what exactly it was. Commander du Couteau, she had said. But he had not come down to the platform to see her personally. He had stayed his distance, and they had communicated in their own secret way. He hadn't expected his mother to be a spy, but then again- this was Noxus, and the more he thought of it, the more it had made sense. She was not beautiful enough to be of note, nor was she ugly enough to be remembered. A person like her, whose plainness made her easy to forget, had made her into the very best infiltrator a man in the Intelligence Corps could ever ask for.

And the man, du Couteau, had been her superior.

In the future, Darius would find himself face to face with the man's daughter, and he would remember just who it was he saw in the balcony that day. He would keep the laughter bubbling silently in his chest, his eyes alight with a private joke.

The teenager's thoughts of his mother's secretive past were interrupted when Urgot shambled over to them. He had swapped out the blade implements on his hands for clamps- how else was he going to hold on to his father's battle-axe? "Maynard de Croix is here. It is time," Urgot growled out. With an awkward little twist of his waist that made it seem as if his stitches were going to burst due to his movements, he gestured towards the blood-stained block waiting for her.

His mother bent her head and enveloped him in a final embrace. Darius buried himself in her arms and tried to burn every inch of her into his memory.

"My darling boy, my light," She kissed him on the forehead as well. "I will tell what gods there are to smile down on you and your brother."

If he had been Draven, he would've clutched at her until the very end, but he was not.

The storm was still coming, and he needed to weather it for himself and for his brother.

So he let her go.

There was a very long speech by Maynard de Croix on how Darius had assaulted his son, but it mattered very little to Draven. Standing off to the side with his older brother, he looked quite small. His eyes were red and puffy from crying compared to Darius' calm gaze, and his sides shook with unwanted hiccups every now and then. As for his brother, Darius looked as if he had aged ninety years since the day he had come back with a paper bag full of goat cheese. The scar on his brow had only recently healed, so it was still visible and oddly awe-inspiring. There was also a small white hair on the top of his brother's head, and Draven made a mental note to tease him about it later.

Draven liked the fact there were so many people who were staring at him, drinking in his every move even if all he did was shift his weight from one foot to the other- even a black crow perched on top of a tree that seemed to take an unusual interest in the proceedings! But then again, this was his parents' execution, and he knew he had to feel sad.

But he wasn't- not as much as he should have. Not as much as he did before, when he first learned of the terrible price they had to pay. Maybe it was because he had spent a long month listening to his parents telling him what was going to happen. Maybe it was because his brother was replaced by some otherworldly being from the Void because the older boy wasn't even flinching or anything when Urgot sharpened their father's battle-axe on a stone wheel.

Draven  _had_  flinched. It had been a nasty noise and it hurt his ears.

His mother was on the chopping block, and her head was angled towards him. She was smiling and then mouthed the word 'now'. Draven knew what to do. He had practiced so many times. He closed his eyes, as mother had instructed all those weeks ago, and counted to three. That was what his mother had said- she had said beheadings didn't last long.

There was a sound- like a butcher's knife severing pork limbs- and then a thumping noise like watermelons rolling into a wicker basket, and then an eerie silence.

Draven opened his eyes again as his brother stepped forward. He felt a stab of envy as the crowd shifted their eyes, and he didn't quite understand why.

"For the life of Adrian de Croix, Athenais paid," Darius said ceremonially to the crowd. He still managed to sound rather confident, given that his voice was still cracking. Slowly, almost reverently, Darius took the basket containing their mother's head.

Draven couldn't resist peeking. Briefly he stared down at the thing in his brother's hands, drinking in his mother's face. She was still wearing a serene smile, but there were faint tears at the edges of her eyes.

Something broke in him then, he wasn't sure what. Finally noticing what his brother was doing, Darius cocked his head and quickly covered her with a purple cloth as he transferred her to a nearby casket- to be burned on a funeral pyre.

"For the other half, I offer Hystaspes." Darius bellowed as he turned back to the crowd, putting the bloody wicker basket back where it had been. Their mother's body was nowhere to be seen.

His father was on the block now, his full battle regalia clanking on the wooden platform. Urgot raised his axe, and Draven closed his eyes again.

He didn't see the blade when it got stuck halfway through his father's neck, but he did feel hot fluid splatter onto his face. Flinching away as the smell of blood filled his nose, Draven felt his brother lay a hand on his shoulder- the older boy's grip was tight enough that it hurt.

There was a gurgling noise somewhere in front of him, and then a groan. Thinking that the executioner was done and wanting to see his father no matter what state he was in, Draven mustered what strength there was left in him to open his eyes, but Darius' hand quickly clapped over his face and enveloped him in darkness again- but there was blood on his brother's hand and it was hotter than his skin.

"Not yet," He heard his older brother say.

"What's happening, Bro?" Draven complained despite himself. "Why is it taking so long?"

"Dad was a warrior," Darius replied. "And warriors don't go down easily, even if they let their enemy walk all over them. You're just going to have to wait."

Draven made a frustrated noise under his breath- when did Dar start to be so stuffy anyway- and shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. Deprived of seeing the execution once again, he chose instead to listen hungrily to the sounds of the execution around him.

The noises that followed were familiar now. The hand over his eyes was pulled away, bringing the heat of his mother's lifeblood with it.

He snapped his eyes open, blinking furiously against the stickiness of his mother's drying blood. His eyes adjusted rapidly, but the blurry shapes didn't coalesce into anything solid until after Darius had already begun the ceremonial motions of receiving his father's head.

His father had been a hairy man with a great big beard- so all Draven could see was a tangle of black and bright red before Darius placed the head inside the casket as well.

"The price for my son's life has been paid," Maynard de Croix took the platform now. He gazed imperiously into the crowd. "Let it be a lesson to all- that blood will be answered with blood."

The onlookers watched as the solemn thirteen year old give a ceremonial bow towards the noble, regardless of the slippery blood that coated his palms. Unlike his younger brother, who had cried earlier and had flinched at the grinding axe, the older boy had held his parents' heads in his hands, and he had never wavered.

 _He had blood like ice,_  an observer would later write in his journal, _and a face of steel. Whoever that teenager was, he would become truly great._

* * *

**Author's Note:** That was a rollercoaster to write, I must say. Demacia takes pride on the values of honor and benevolence, so it would make sense for Noxus to have parallel values. In keeping with the concept that Noxus was where the strong succeeded and the weak perished, I figured that personal pride, the concept of a  _good_  death and the warrior ethos (never give up, never surrender) fit very well in this context.


	5. Variables of Coevolution

_We stand now in the place and limit of time_

_Where hardest knowledge is turning into dream,_

_And nightmares still contained in sleeping dark_

_Seem on the point of bringing into day_

_The sweating panic that starts the sleeper up._

_One or another nightmare may come true,_

_And what to do then? What in the world to do?_

**Magnitude (Howard Nemerov)**

* * *

**ONE YEAR LATER...**

A man was addressing his workers in a forest.

It would be generous to describe the area they were in as a 'forest'- a fire had raged through two days earlier. What had been a bustling insect farm had turned into an eerie, charred hell. Burnt tree limbs jutted vertically from the grey earth, buried in ash a foot deep, the metallic taste of the incoming spring rains heavy in the air. Once, there had been a billion insects alive on the trees, their bodies bulbous with the valuable pigment that would have made a very rich red. Now their bodies intermingled with the earth, too numerous to be properly distinguished from dirt and ash.

The man's workers were equally battered. Mostly teenagers whose faces and hands were streaked with dust and sweat that mixed into an unhealthy paste on their skin, their developing frames were plagued with constant hunger and exhaustion. Most of them had not slept in two days as their masters had wanted the fire quelled as soon as possible. The effort to save what remained of the farm showed in the dull light in the youths' eyes, in the grumbling of their stomachs and in the slack mouths hanging open, dry and airy with hunger and thirst.

"The fire took a quarter of the farm, resulting in a net loss of oh, fifty something gold. It's quite tragic-" The man was saying. With a rapidly receding hairline, he had evidently worked hard to save what few wisps of hair he had left. He looked to be more at home counting gold coins than addressing a drained workforce- his clothes were relatively new and neatly pressed, and his hands were more used to the toil of holding a quill pen and a ledger than they were picking through detritus and sharp wood for the rotund bodies of squirming insects. "You could've worked a bit harder to save that unlucky quarter… But ah, that's getting into places we don't need to be."

That none of them asked if they were going to be paid more for two days of dangerous work that had sapped at their energy and robbed them of sleep did not seem to bother them. Obviously, with the lack of sleep and food taking its toll, most of them were too drained to even consider what the other man had just said. The few that did understand what had just occurred made a hollow groan of complaint that seemed more appropriate for a reanimated corpse.

A grubby hand darted into the air. The man peered at the bearer and then glanced down at the little ledger in his hand. There was a hand-drawn portrait there, showing a strong-jawed young man with black hair that contained a single streak of grey, a sharp nose, prominent cheekbones and a jagged scar that crossed over his brow near his left eye. "Yes… Darius, was it?"

The youth in front of him gave a nod of assent. There was still a trace of the young man in the portrait, if one had cared to give him a good scrubbing down. A year since his parents' execution, his voice was starting to settle into the gravelly tone that everyone in Runeterra would know and fear. The growth spurt that resulted in the creation of massive giants from stunted saplings was already making him a full head taller than his peers- and he still had a good six years left to grow. He was still as stocky as ever, but when one is poor, one could not always eat what was best.

The clerk made a thoughtful noise. He had never seen the youth personally before the fire. Now, seeing Darius had cemented the stories he had already heard about him. It was a tale that defied convention, and it would grow more unbelievable as the years went by.

The story went as such; that the moment the fire had broken out, the foremen had decided to pull out all the workers and to leave the farm to the flames, relying on the aqueducts to provide a barrier and to prevent the fire from spreading to other parts of Noxus. It was a solid plan. The clerk had seen the request, had watched the glowing yellow-orange aura in the horizon spread like a second sun and had approved it without a second thought. Barely ten minutes later, a runner had come to him screaming about mutiny in the grounds: one of the workers had knocked out the foreman for his team, and had organized his ragtag band of youths into teams of four. It was a perfect time to rebel- after all; everyone's attention was on the fire.

The clerk had wondered then if he had to call in the city guard, and he had asked the messenger if he should, but then he was interrupted when another boy came into the room. This boy was covered in soot and sweat. He was plainly exhausted and winded from having run such a long way, but there was a light in his eyes that wouldn't be stamped out.

"It's not a mutiny sir!" The newest messenger had exclaimed immediately. "Darius wanted to build firebreaks sir, and the foreman didn't think he was being clever."

"Firebreaks?" The clerk had repeated, mystified.

"His father had been a woodcutter sir; he said he knew how to deal with forest fires." The boy had replied. "The foreman was being stubborn so there wasn't much he could do- he does send his regards sir."

"Firebreaks." The balding man had shaken his head. "Well, I don't know what in the world he's doing- and if he dies, it'll be his own fault… but if it would help the farm… tell him the House of de Montpelier rewards initiative, and to continue what he intended. We can't let it take the rest of the grounds."

With his blessing, the boys had skittered back to the distant farm, straight to the growing blaze.

The fire had raged for two days. In that span of time, the story of Darius punching the foreman in the face had been replaced with more concrete reports. Soon after sending the foreman to the hospice, he had organized the kids into teams for the fire: the youngsters he sent off for buckets of water, the oldest ones battled the blaze alongside him with shovels. After the fifth hour, he had somehow managed to rope in the rest of the working parties and had the remaining foremen taking orders from him. By nightfall, there had been a rotation- those who had worked a number of hours were cycled out to rest, while the fresher boys were sent to maintain the breaks.

In the future, when Darius was already a man with the General's mark on his shoulders, he would still hear tales of the boy who bathed in fire. It was hilarious, really, what would happen to words when they pass through too many ears.

As of now, however, the boy who would be General was currently ignoring the gnawing of his stomach and the heaviness of his eyes. Resisting the urge to simply keel over and go to sleep, he licked his cracked lips and spoke above the half-dead crowd. "Would we be getting an additional gold coin, sir? For stopping the fire?"

The clerk checked his ledger. Darius could tell from the face he made that something had gone wrong somewhere. Maybe they weren't getting paid. Maybe the House of de Montpelier had gone back on their word. He had been given assurances only a day before that their efforts wouldn't be in vain. He had chosen to work for this family purely because he had heard they acknowledged ingenuity.

"One gold piece," The clerk stated finally as he pushed his spectacles up the small bridge of his nose. "For all of you. But ah, Darius, was it? I must talk with you alone."

 _Ah. I'm the problem then,_  Darius thought to himself darkly.

As the boys shambled off to their homes after two days of firefighting, the clerk took him to one side- far away from prying eyes and straining ears. Darius respectfully allowed him a few minutes to compose his words. There was no point in telling the old man to hurry up and just tell him what had gone wrong with his salary.

Like a hunted man, the clerk looked around him. Darius followed his glance. There was nothing alive in the burned wood except for the two of them. Not even animals had decided to come back yet. There was an inquisitive crow on a jagged branch to his right, but that was probably just an animal looking for scraps or baubles to take away.

After five minutes, the clerk finally began to speak. "You've worked very well," The old man looked at him regretfully. "And I would reward  _you_. The de Montpeliers  _are_  grateful. The gold was already set aside. You were to obtain three pieces, because of your quick thinking but ah, there was word from the House of de Croix only hours earlier…"

Darius resisted the urge to box the man on the ears. The clerk had done nothing wrong towards him- he was simply being the messenger. The trouble lay on someone else- someone who would not let the grudge rest. "… And a certain  _someone_  told the de Montpeliers that I wasn't anything but trouble?"

"Regrettably so." The clerk said.

"Thank you for telling me." Darius said, even if he didn't feel like thanking the clerk at all.

"The House of de Montpelier thanks you for your service." The clerk returned his thanks with the same hollow platitude.

Darius left the burnt farm with a heavy cloud lurking over his shoulder. The monsoon season was coming in; he needed more food and lamp oil and Draven was growing too big for his clothes, even with his older brother sewing new ones every three months. One might think it silly that Darius, the bear-like man that he was, would be adept with a sewing kit, but sometimes it was a lot cheaper to simply alter, patch up or make one's own clothing rather than to buy new garments.

Still, there was only so much he could do with a needle and thread, especially since Draven seemed hell-bent on either growing out of or ruining his clothes entirely in street scuffles that were increasingly becoming the norm. Sewing wasn't the only skill Darius had to pick up in the year since their parents' death. He knew more or less how to put together a meal now from almost anything, and picked up a few medical skills from patching his brother up.

Draven was becoming more difficult to handle. The younger brother was entering his teenage years and their parents' execution had been the event that broke his previous concept of 'safety'. It seemed that House de Croix was everywhere in Noxus- Darius was constantly moving from job to job, and Draven was constantly being singled out by his richer age mates and bullied into oblivion. In retrospect, the abuse was inevitable- Darius had killed the youngest son of an influential family. They had his parents executed, and now they were trying to stomp him and his brother off the face of the earth by making life itself intolerable.

Darius had enough of his wits left in him to tolerate the nigh universal abuse with as much grace as a patient and murderous tiger carefully plotting the eventual demise of his abusive handlers, but Draven was turning into a rabid dog. One of these days, someone was going to put him down and there was nothing Darius would be able to do to save him from the guillotine if the time came.

Darius' weary feet took him to Sapphire Ward- one of the few middle-income areas within Noxus. There was plenty of opportunity here, if one had cared to look hard enough. The ward was primarily a center that mirrored the inhabitants' economic bracket: butchers' stalls interspersed with jeweler's stands, a shoe shiner called for customers from his humble box next to a luxury rug merchant. Darius pushed past the churning mob of people and into a side street.

If there was a god, he or she was watching him- there was a loudly snoring man clutching a bottle passed out inside the ditch to his right. After looking over his shoulder to check if anyone else had seen him, Darius searched his pockets and relieved him of his purse: two gold coins. He stared down at it and stuffed it into his pocket- it was barely enough, but he wasn't one to curse his own luck.

After toeing past an open sewer grate where a couple of flushers were working on removing a blockage and ducking underneath vibrant colored fabrics hanging outside the dyers, the fourteen year old finally arrived at a house squeezed into a narrow corridor. Kids of all ages darted in and out of the open door. Most of them looked like they needed a bath and some new clothes. Darius craned his head to scan the sea of ruddy faces and gap-toothed smiles, frowning when he didn't see the person he had left behind in the crèche hours earlier.

There were, and still are, many accusations about Noxus: on how only the strong would prevail and where the weak perished without anyone ever looking for them. The aforementioned adage is true, but in a nation of soldiers who could be called into active duty at any minute of any given day, the demand for crèches- or places where one could leave one's children to be looked after- were second only to that of the demand for living space. In true human form, there were the crèches for the privileged and wealthy, which were properly termed as 'boarding schools' or 'institutes of learning', that cost between one and five gold a day for food, clothing, board and education. At three copper a day, a crèche like the one Darius had left Draven in provided food,  _if_  the child was on good terms with the matron, and a roof over the kids' heads.

Darius pushed past the wave of children and entered the house. It needed repair badly. The stone floor was loosely covered with threadbare rags. What part of the walls that were not covered water stained and peeling wallpaper was made of cracked stones and poorly mixed concrete. There were plenty of toys and children lying on the cold ground- rope ponies for the girls and clacking wooden dogs for the boys- that Darius had to step over before he arrived at the kitchen where the matron was mixing some thin watery gruel in a large pot.

She was the quintessential hag: there was a fat wart on her beaked nose. Her skin was pallid and covered in fine hairs. Her stringy white hair covered a rapidly balding head. Her teeth, what teeth she had left anyway, were yellow and rotten. No one knew what her name was- everyone just called her 'Matron'. Darius had found the crèche she ran after he and Draven had been caught out in a storm six months ago- they had just lost their home to Maynard de Croix's manipulations.

Finding that he couldn't manage Draven and work at the same time, he had managed to secure an agreement. The brothers lived with her now, sharing one rickety room and one cobwebbed dresser between them. Compared to their old dwelling, they had a roof over their heads, a changing sky outside and glass windows- even if Darius had to give her six copper twice a month, repair the house and make toys for the kids. Woodworking wasn't that far from logging after all.

"Matron," Darius greeted. "Have you seen my brother?"

She gave a grunt of acknowledgement and scratched at a sore on her arm. "Haven't seen the brat since you left this morning."

Darius chewed at his lip. "Ah. Alright then."

"You're three days behind on your fees." She reminded him not-too-gently. "The roof still has that hole in it and Gerard broke his toy pony."

"Money's hard. I'm sorry," Darius said in a contrite tone as he turned his back on her. Darius had never been one to apologize- in fact, he was more prone to smashing someone's face in for insulting his dead mother- but since it was only him and his brother now, he found that it was easier to say sorry and take an insult to the face than it was to stand his ground and get beaten up for it. He was not being submissive in any way- it simply was more practical. It was unfortunate that Draven was still too stubborn and headstrong to realize that his older brother's docility was only  _temporary_.

"I'll work on the roof and the ah- toy before the rains." He added as he left.

"Keeping your brother around is hard too," Matron said nastily at his retreating back. "You probably should get him in line before someone decides to chop his head off."

 _I'm too tired to deal with you and your threats today,_  Darius thought darkly to himself as he left the crèche. He had to find his idiot little brother before the kid did something he was going to regret.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  As much as possible, I wanted to show how much Darius changed since his parents' death. If you read into it, you'll find he's gotten far more assertive, and that he tends to think a little too much on the repercussions of things. He takes insults to the face now and he doesn't react because he knows he can't afford to be stupid. I couldn't resist throwing in his leadership skills also, and his inevitable approach towards stupid behavior: get rid of the stupidity by any means necessary, and then reorganize the unit according to how he saw fit in order to produce better results. He is going to be a General after all, and even Darius has to start somewhere.


	6. Escape and Radiate

_Shall we not shudder?—_

_Shall we not flee_

_Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter_

_Of the familiar_

_Propitious haze?_

_Sweet is it, sweet is it_

_To sleep in the coolness_

_Of snug unawareness._

_The dark hangs heavily_

_Over the eyes._

**Truth (Gwendolyn Brooks)**

* * *

**TWO HOURS LATER...**

When Darius had been helping the other boys fight the fire, he had tried to lead by example. He had been at the breaks for most of the two days, and never let himself have more than a few moments of snatched rest in the form of quick ten minute naps and a couple of sips of water and a piece of bread or two.

Now his actions were betraying him. There was no other way to properly describe the bone-weary yet hallucinatory feeling that lack of sleep was giving him- his eyelids had been so heavy he nearly upset a crystal merchant's delicately balanced display when he almost walked into it. His stomach had stopped groaning an hour ago- now it was eerily silent and he strangely felt full. He probably would've salivated when he passed by a restaurant and saw a boar being roasted on a spit, but then again he hadn't been drinking much and his mouth remained as dry as the dirt underneath his feet as he trundled on.

He could have gone back to the crèche and waited for Draven there. It would've been the best option considering that he was too tired to even remember where he was going, but then his brother was the kind of idiot whose actions either made people love his antics or filled them with an intense desire to kill him- it was highly unfortunate that the latter happened more often than the former, especially with Draven spitting venom at everyone who tried to ground him under their heels. Needless to say, Darius was worried to death, even if he was so utterly  _fed-up_  with tolerating his younger brother's stupid habit of picking fights with everyone and  _everything._

In the distant future he would become such an imposing and frightening figure within Noxus that people would question his humanity, but a fourteen year old Darius was not totally heartless. As much as he wanted to throttle the brat  _sometimes_ , Draven was still his little brother and the only family he had left that was still relatively untouched by his faults. Leaving him alone would be to practically let Draven go off and get his head chopped off because the stupid kid thought it was a good idea to flip a finger at a politician's third cousin twice removed or some other nonsense. Darius was never going to just sit and wait at home- even if he was tired of walking around like some shambling nightmare horror and of working day in and day out in coal ditches and sewage tunnels and insect farms and dank ochre pits only to be booted out or deprived of pay by Maynard's eventual influence.

"Darius!" A voice pierced through his thoughts. The youth blinked and then looked around. A younger boy from his crew back at the insect farm was waving at him from behind a butcher's stall. Thomas was his name, and he had been picked on vigorously by the other kids because he was too big until Darius had put the other boys in their place. Evidently, he had found time to clean up, and was now wearing a bloodstained apron over his clothes.

To wit, in the world of insect farming, the best insects were the ones with bulbous abdomens filled with pigment. The only way for insects to become that grossly overweight was when the bugs managed to burrow close to the cores of trees. But of course, with size came vulnerability- with their exoskeletons stretched to the brim, the protection afforded by their chitin plates lessened. A bad blow on the trunk of a tree or a wrongly gauged pinch was going to make the expensive insects explode. If one was to have a successful insect farm then, one had to retrieve the insects without ruining them.

Most of the workers at Noxian insect farms, therefore, were small scrappers who would have become great Demacian violinists or Ionian artists because their long and flexible hands were perfect for playing complicated wooden instruments or holding calligraphy pens- even if the children themselves sometimes were not skilled enough to comprehend written orders. That lack of education was primarily why older boys like Darius were taken in, even if they were not good for insect farming at all- younger children naturally look up to older children. The more likeable or respectable the older child was, the easier it was to instruct the younger child to stop crying when they cut their hands on sharp bark.

Of course, the issue of having older children in insect farms would be over if the younger kids knew how to read and write, but education was a privilege in Noxus, not a right. Their father only knew how to read but had never felt the need to learn how to write, so it was fortunate that Darius and Draven had a mother that knew her letters. When the boys had figured it out, Athenais had pushed them into a 'school'- a rather generous word for a single room filled to the brim with children and one schoolmaster who prattled about Noxian military history. Since his parents' death, Darius had not been in a schoolroom- they did not have money for it. In the future, his unlearned status would put him at a significant disadvantage against his peers in the officer corps- but that would be much later. For now, his primary problem was finding his wayward sibling.

"Thomas," Darius managed a greeting halfway through an incoming yawn. "I thought you'd be home by now."

"Mama's been sick for a while." The other boy said sadly. "So I thought I'd work for Rurik. He's a good master- like you said."

Darius made a satisfied noise in his throat. Rurik had been one of his father's acquaintances, and Darius had worked for him in the first two months since the execution. In addition to his stall in Sapphire Ward, the man owned a pig farm as well, and that was where Darius had worked when he wasn't at the market hanging the meat or delivering freshly butchered joints to the homes of wealthy patrons. The smell of blood and the feel of a squealing pig underneath his hand as he slit its' throat had taken some getting used to- the white heat of the pig's lifeblood hadn't been any different from his parents'- but he had managed in the end. He would still be working for the man, if only-

"Does Rurik still take orders from the House of Liechtenstein?" Darius probed.

"Yes. Hans von Liechtenstein was even here earlier," Thomas replied slowly. "He picked up a suckling pig for House de Croix. I overheard him talking about the de Croix family having a celebration of sorts- I didn't catch what it was for."

The fourteen year old suppressed the murderous feelings that rose in his gut, but even the strength of his will couldn't hide the way his face twisted into a sharp frown at the news. Maynard was celebrating, and there was no doubt in the young man's mind as to what the celebrations were for- if not the fact that he had successfully deprived him of another job, perhaps he had done something to Draven-

"Are you alright?" Thomas asked, staring at him in concern.

"Just fine," Darius gritted out. He tried to push his thoughts back to his priorities and not in the man who was making life impossible to live. "Have you seen Draven?"

"Your younger brother? I haven't seen him," The butcher's apprentice said with a shrug.

_Maybe the idiot is dying somewhere._  His mind pitched in sardonically.

"If he comes by, will you tell him that I'm looking for him?" He said instead. As an afterthought, Darius gave the apprentice a look and then frowned at him. "And clean up your apron, you're going to scare Rurik's customers away."

"Certainly," Thomas said as he removed the offending article of clothing. "Don't worry about Draven. I'm sure your brother will turn up one of these days."

_Oh, he'll turn up- dead in the moat,_  Darius' thoughts finished for him.

"Yeah." Darius said woodenly. "Maybe when he's hungry."

"Maybe!" Thomas retorted cheerfully.

_Or maybe he's just eating suckling pig from Maynard's party._

His mind, the young man decided then, was being difficult. It was the lack of sleep talking, making him imagine things.

"I'll leave you to your work then." Darius told him.

"Alright," Blissfully oblivious of the older boy's thoughts and predicament, Thomas flashed him a smile as he pulled a new apron on as he placed the old one inside a nearby wash bucket. "I'll see you back at the farm?"

"Sure." Darius lied, and left the younger boy to his work.

As he walked he thought of what he had just done. He had good rapport with those boys, and with the House of de Montpelier. Still, the House of de Croix stood higher within Noxian social hierarchy- even if the Montpeliers wanted to keep him; there wasn't much they could do about it. He never would be able to work at the farm again in the same way he would never be able to work for Rurik again. Maynard de Croix was everywhere. It was almost a constant in his life: he would find work, he would be good at that work, and then Maynard would find  _him_ \- and then the man would do everything in his power to ruin him-

His half-asleep wanderings nearly had him plowing into an apple cart. As it was, his considerable size- he didn't look like a fourteen year old, much less feel like one- had sent a whole bushel of apples tumbling down on the ground. Some of them were still safe on the dry cobbled stones, but the rest had rolled into a nearby ditch filled with murky rainwater.

"Hey!" The merchant snapped irritably. "You're paying for that!"

Darius glanced at the apples, bobbing merrily in the brown sea that was the ditch, and then glanced back at the merchant. Exhausted as he was, Darius knew that to outright curse at the man for being a fussy bitch was going to have things escalating quickly, so instead of saying what he actually wanted to say, which was ' _are you fucking kidding me, go boil your head in a pot'_ , he simply opted to reply in a dismissive tone: "Just wipe them down."

"I can't sell those now!" The merchant said as he pointed at the ditch. "No one in their right mind at Sapphire Ward is going to pay for those ruined apples. You're giving me one gold piece right now or else I'll call the guard."

Darius only had two gold pieces on him- the coins that he stole from the drunken sleeper earlier that day. To give one of his hard-earned coins to a man upset at a bushel of dirty apples was like paying five hundred gold coins for a piece of coal, but he didn't have much of a choice- if the man called the guard, he would be thrown into jail and he wouldn't be able to find Draven. As much as he didn't want to part with his money, he grudgingly dug out one coin and held it out to the merchant for inspection.

After chewing vigorously on the coin to determine if it was actual gold, the merchant left him to fish the fruits up by himself. As he was sitting on the cobbled stones drying the apples with his shirt, his drained mind vaguely reminded him that Draven's stomach was fussier than a cat's- he wouldn't be able to afford the medicine if his younger brother got sick from eating the apples.

_What am I going to do with a bushel of questionable apples that no one is probably going to eat?_  He wondered. Images of pummeling Draven to death with them looking better by the second, he slapped at his cheeks a few times to clear his head of fratricidal thoughts, sighed and then willed himself to look at what he  _had_ , and at what he  _knew_.

_Obviously_ , wandering around and hoping that he tripped into Draven was not helping in any way. In fact, if he kept it up he probably would smash his head into the crystal merchant's display and then he would have to spend the rest of his life in a jail cell because he didn't have enough gold on him to pay for anything. He had a bushel of apples that had recently fallen into a dirty ditch. Draven was still missing. He was tired, hungry and he wanted nothing more than to collapse in his creaky wooden bed and pull his straw pillow over his face with the hope that being deprived of oxygen was going to give him a sleep deep enough to ignore Matron's snores.

He needed help, and an idea came to him as he finished drying the last apple. He wasn't sure the person would even help him, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Pushing himself up from the ground, he gathered the apples into his shirt and walked on. He left the Ward quickly, nigh running through alleyways and squeezing past fences and gated corridors to one of the many entrances to the Underground.

Noxus had been founded on a granite mountain, but over the years the inhabitants had quickly discovered the caverns underneath. It did not take long for the quickly developing city to seize the miles of naturally formed tunnels for its own and eventually, a new society formed underneath the aristocratic surface: the Underground.

It was a world of darkness, artificial light, cutthroats and thieves, and it was a world where Darius and Draven had been born into. As bad as it was, as ruthless their world was around them, the Underground had been their home- before Maynard de Croix bought their residence from underneath them and forced them out into the streets above six months ago.

There had been many things to learn in the month that his parents remained alive. One of them had been about property, and about law. Darius had tried his best, but he could not remember everything, and one day a lawyer had come to their door and had informed them they had been breaking a property code or some such- he had not been certain enough to call the man false. Now they were living with a crone and an impossible number of children- but at least there was a sky outside that changed colors, a sun that gave off a real and warm light, a changing wind, and moon and stars that dotted the sky above.

In the Underground, there was no such thing. There were only the cold tunnel walls, the weak lamplight in the distance, the supporting wooden frames that helped shoulder the burden of the city above his head and the sickeningly sweet fungal smell of prolonged human habitation in a small, small place. There were ventilation shafts but hardly any fresh air ever reached the lowest levels.

It was fortunate that he would not have to go too far to get to the place where he had to be. Before Maynard's inevitable influence had removed him from his post, Darius had worked as a flusher in charge of cleaning out blockages. It was good work despite the smell and the environment he operated in, because people often lost the silliest and most valuable things to storm drains and sewer gratings. He had found more than the odd gold piece in the murk. A few months into the job, he had been sent to a particular place to see what was causing a decrease in the flow of the sewage pipes- and instead of finding a clump of vegetation, cloth and human excrement as he had expected, he had found a little settlement next to a blocked pipe, and a bone-thin boy with eyes too big for his small face clutching a stone-shard knife in his skinny hands. The kid had lashed out without warning, and had given him a fierce gash on his hand, but in the end Darius had won the scuffle by capturing both the boy's pencil-thin wrists in one hand.

He would have hauled the child off to the guardsmen because settling next to pipes and blocking them off was illegal- but then again there was something about the child that reminded him of his little brother. Maybe it was the hungry stare, the little lick of the lips whenever he saw something nice that he wanted to have. Maybe it was the hair, or the self-indulgent screaming and pitiful threats- Darius didn't know. He had let him off by boxing him on the ears instead. Over the course of his work through the Underground, he had come to know the child's name, and where the little knife-holding shadow tended to mark his 'territory'. He also knew that the kid was partial to apples- several of the workers who had also worked for an apple farm had been mugged often enough for the incidents to not be a coincidence.

He hoped that the boy was still where he had found him the last time he had seen him over a month ago- at a place in the tunnels that had a ladder leading up to a sewer cover on one side, a locked iron door leading to the rest of the Noxian sewer system and a ramp leading down to the overpopulated Bronze Ward- the Underground's equivalent of the aboveground Ivory Ward. It was the prime location for a mugger and a thief- there were plenty of escape routes and a constant source of income nearby.

Darius took one apple from the bunch and put the rest behind a nearby support beam. He then positioned himself next to a hatch on the floor about as big as a small man-it was one of many that led to a small room with a sewage pipe that could be opened to check the flow of sewage out of the city. This particular one was grimy and seemingly overwhelmed by rust- the complete opposite of a well-used and regularly inspected sewer node. Dirtied apple in hand, Darius reached down and tapped on the corroded surface with his knuckles.

The only thing he heard in the tunnels was his own breathing. Darius laid the apple down near the hatch and moved away. An eternity seemed to pass before the hatch screeched open slowly. A head emerged- messy black hair, eyes too bright for his grubby mud-covered face. His clothes were still the same- ripped, somewhat mended together awkwardly and stained with dark spots that could either have been human blood or excrement. He didn't look any better than he did the first time Darius had seen him. He was still so thin, and it seemed as if he had managed to get himself into more trouble- the kid had several new scars on him, made painfully obvious by the fact that the injured spots looked cleaner than the rest of him.

As soon as he realized what was in front of him, the child grasped the offered fruit with white-knuckled tenacity and lizard speed, clutching it close to his chest and staring at the older boy suspiciously. Darius noted the 'blades' hanging on the rope harness that went over Talon's small frame - some were made of broken glass shards wrapped with cloth handles, while there were at least two other blades that looked to have been pilfered from wealthier thieves. The boy had changed, it seemed.

Still watching Darius with keen eyes, the child dug his teeth into the fruit with a satisfied crunch, chewing thoughtfully, a hand always close to his blade-laden rope harness. For his part, Darius waited patiently. He watched the younger boy tear into the fruit and hoped that the kid wouldn't realize the thing he was eating had just taken a dive in a ditch- but then again, the kid probably lived in what was worse than a ditch.

"'S good," The boy said, as he pushed apple pieces into one of his cheeks like a starved hamster.

"Swallow your food before you talk, Talon." Darius said automatically.

"I do wha' I wanna do." The grubby child swallowed and licked his lips, his eyes still watching the older boy carefully. "Whatsit for?"

"Have you seen an annoying little kid about as tall as my chest with a head bigger than yours and a mouth that won't just stay shut?" Darius asked.

"You talkin' bout a lot of people." The child noted.

"The person I'm looking for is too noisy and too annoying to be 'a lot of people'." Darius retorted.

"Mightno' have seen 'im at all." Talon said with a careless shrug of his bony shoulders.

"I know you tend to keep an eye out." Darius told him. "You're too good a thief to not look behind you."

There was a pregnant pause as the boy thought on his words. Smiling bashfully at Darius' words, he adopted a sort of professional tone- at least, what passed for a professional tone given that he spoke with a strange accent- obviously he had been forced to learn how to talk on his own. "Never seen anybody like tha'."

"Liar." Darius snapped, and he reached out to cuff the boy on the head. Talon managed to dodge the massive paw and glared at him balefully.

"Could kill you," The child said, his little chest puffing out with particular pride as he fingered the cloth-wrapped hilt of one of his blades. "For calling me a liar. An' tryin' to hit me. An' being mean."

"If you'd like, we can continue our little fight. I can finally choke the life out of you with my bare hands." Darius replied tartly. "I'm not here to waste time. Have you seen a mouthy idiot or not?"

"Got a short temper today." Talon mumbled as he backed into the sewer node, letting the darkness obscure the rest of his features and his limbs.

"What's that I hear? You want to die today?" Darius reached down and pulled him back up by the neck of his patched-together shirt. He was held a good foot off the sewer hatch, but still Talon did not cry or quiver in fear.

"Someone pee in your face?" The kid commented slyly.

"Fine, be difficult." Darius snarled as he let the child go. Talon tumbled back into the darkness of his own home- the sound of body hitting stone echoing loudly in the tunnels, and then there was silence. Evidently, this wasn't the first time he had been thrown down a ladder.

"I'm not giving you another apple. I would have if you helped me." Darius told the hole.

There were scrambling sounds from the bottom of the ladder, and then Talon's head peeked out of the open hatch; his hair was in complete disarray and a new bruise was developing on his cheek. The seemingly abusive nature with which Darius had dealt with him didn't seem to faze the boy at all, but the thought of not being given his favorite food had irked him. "… Ya wouldn'."

Darius raised an eyebrow and gave a smug smirk. "I  _would_."

"Wouldn'." Talon snapped back as he stared at the older boy resentfully.

"Would."

"Wouldn'."

" _Would_."

"You lyin'!" Talon yelled sorely. "I took a looksy into your pockets- you don't have any more apples on you!"

Darius crossed his arms, confident enough that the younger boy hadn't found the stash. "Or  _am_  I?"

Talon was practically squirming inside his hatch. "…How many more apples do you have?"

"Do you know about any noisy idiots who passed by here?" Darius shot back.

"… There was one guy." Talon finally mumbled out. Darius struggled to hold in the first shreds of hope.

"Speak up or else I'm going to hit you again." He said gruffly, raising his hand for good effect.

"One kid!" Talon quailed back. "Bit taller tha' me. Weird hair an' a nose like yours. Mutterin' somethin' about wooing a crowd in Onyx Ward."

Onyx Ward- one of the higher class Wards- was a good ten minutes away. If he left the Underground and used the surface roads, he'd arrive in the central square past sundown. If he used the tunnels- and he still remembered some handy shortcuts- he would get there in ten minutes or so. There was no other option- if he wanted to make sure Draven wasn't sticking his nose into somewhere troublesome, he had to leave now and use the tunnels.

"There's a whole bushel behind the pillar there-" Darius yelled over his shoulder as he ran.

By the time Darius entered Onyx Ward's city square, he had explained himself past four city guards, snuck past three long patrols and literally climbed over one security checkpoint- the aristocrats of Noxus didn't take any chances with the various entrances that led to the criminal underworld. The sun was already sinking underneath the horizon. He could tell from the tense crowd in front of him that the guardsmen were in an uproar about something. Overtaken with worry, he stepped up his pace. He squeezed past the gathered crowd and, upon seeing what they were staring at, resisted the urge to take his face in his own hands and curse his brother for being so stupid.

The scene in front of him was straight out of one of his nightmares: one teenager was bawling his eyes out, a trail of blood, tears and snot trickling down his broken nose. Eleven year old Draven was standing over the youth, his thinner frame laden with rapidly darkening bruises and slowly oozing scrapes.

Darius shoved people aside and made his way to his brother's side.

"What in the world are you doing?" Darius hissed out as he savagely pulled his brother back.

"I'll kill him," Draven snarled out as he struggled against his brother's grasp, the cut on his lip bleeding profusely. "Talking bad about dad, and calling mom a whore- I'll kill him with my ba-"

The younger boy never finished, as Darius cuffed his brother sharply on the head enough to make his brain jump about in his skull.

"You're made of a thousand  **fucking**   _idiots_." Darius growled. Draven flinched- his temples were already sore from the previous fight, and his brother had just given him another headache.

"All the fucking time," Darius muttered under his breath as he pulled Draven away. "I have to drag you out of your stupid fucking decisions."

"You said we shouldn't-" Draven tried to argue, but his older brother cut him off with a little jerk of his hand and a deathly glare.

"Not here." Darius snapped impatiently. They looked almost comic: Darius had a hand around a good chunk of Draven's shirt, and was using that leverage to literally pull his younger brother away despite the fact that the latter was digging in his heels. For his age, Darius was absurdly strong- especially if one considered the fact that he looked like he could use a hot meal, a bath and new clothes after fighting a forest fire for two days and crawling through the Underground for hours.

Draven tried to complain repeatedly as Darius pulled him down a side-alley, but the older brother having none of it. Darius punched him on the shoulder and shook him like a ragdoll every time he heard a noise- until Draven decided the better course of action was to shut up.

The silence didn't last very long. Once Darius had stopped in the shadow of a granite wall and stared at Draven, the younger couldn't stay quiet any longer.

"You hit me!" Draven whined as he nursed his hurting head.

"What did I tell you before, huh?" Darius resisted the urge to scream at him because his voice was still changing and he'd only sound ridiculous instead of threatening. He forced himself to remain calm, even if all he wanted to do was to shake Draven silly- or beat his brother's face in. "You can whine and bitch all you want, but  **you shouldn't pick a fight**!"

"I was only trying to be more like you." Draven said almost pitifully.

Darius stared at him, taken aback by his brother's words. "Why in the world would you ever want to be like me?" He asked him in disbelief.

"Back then, when mom and dad were still alive, you never let anyone insult them." Draven pointed out. "And when I got bullied, you never let them off."

_Look where that led us._  The older boy almost said the thought out loud, but he had caught himself just in time. He shook his head instead. "That's  **not**  a good idea."

"Why not?" Draven asked, the first sparks of defiance alight in his eyes.

"Because we can't." At that point in time, Darius was too tired to explain.

"You're not making any sense." Draven retorted.

"Just stop picking fights like a fucking idiot and keep your stupid overinflated head down!" Darius kept his hands clenched. He didn't want to hit his brother again- but the brat was asking for it. "That was a stupid thing you did back there! You're fucking lucky I even found you!"

"So you're saying I should just let them walk all over me? Is that it? Whatever happened to being strong?" He spat out, his voice cracking on the last syllable. "And standing up for yourself? You keep telling me that this is Noxus, and I shouldn't let other people bully me, that I shouldn't look weak!"

Darius was about to tell him ' _yes'_ , that he had to keep his head down because they were practically being hounded off the face of the earth. His mouth was already forming the words when Draven interrupted him with a thunderous shout.

"Well fuck you! I'm not weak like you!" The younger boy screamed. "Just because mom and dad's dead doesn't mean that we should act any different! I'm not going to change for anything!"

_Why am_ _ **I**_ _the one getting the sermon now?_  Darius thought to himself despairingly. Willing himself to not throttle his baby brother to death, he shrugged off the insult and tried to remember what exactly it was they were arguing about. Draven apparently had been thinking that his older brother had turned into a coward. "So you think I'm weak?"

"You are!" Draven screeched. "You are weak! You let everyone walk all over you like a fucking rug!"

Darius pulled his fist back and slammed the limb against his brother's jaw. It sent a shock up his arm, made his teeth grind on the edge and hurt like nothing else he'd ever done before, but he honestly felt, with every tired bone in his body, that the younger boy had deserved it. The force of the blow knocked the smaller and lighter Draven off his feet.

Darius towered over him. Mentally reminding himself that he shouldn't kill Draven, he stared down at his baby brother and spoke through gritted teeth. "You still think I'm weak?"

"Go ahead! It's easy to beat me up," Draven managed to snarl back, even though he was somewhat unintelligible now that his jaw was hurting more than ever. "What's a few more hits?"

"It's way too easy to beat the shit out of you," Darius commented bitingly. "What makes you think I'm weak, Draven?"

"You're not-" Draven began, but this time Darius was the one to cut him off. He had enough.

"The question is: what am I  _not_  doing?" Darius asked him. His eyes were narrowed to slits, his clenched fists shaking from barely withheld rage. "I go to work so we'd have money, I go to the market and buy you the  _good_  food, which I then cook because your stomach is so fucking finicky, I tolerate your noise and your nightmares and your weeping, I sew your fucking clothes and I patch you up when you get yourself into trouble. What else am I  _not_  doing?"

"You used to-" Draven tried again, but his older brother stopped him.

"Defending you from bullies? Is that what I'm  _not_  doing? Here's a thought: why don't you just  **fucking**  grow a pair, Draven?" Darius roared at him, and there was nothing else in his voice except for a year of pent-up bitterness at their situation and utter loathing for the person in front of him. His future self would rue this moment, as it was the trigger for more troubles to come, and it was the one moment in his life that he had ever been  **painfully**  honest with his brother. "You're old enough to fucking take care of yourself! Why don't you just start doing it?"

Tears were gathering at the corners of Draven's eyes as he stared at him in frightened silence. If he had been calmer, Darius would've realized what emotion lurked behind his brother's eyes at that moment: fear. It took a few painful seconds for him to realize that his younger brother was  _afraid-_  and when he did, the thought sent a sick feeling through his gut and sent the guilt rushing into his chest. Of all the people in the world, he had made his brother afraid of  _him_. Maybe Draven thought that he was going to be left behind; maybe he had actually feared for his own life, maybe-

"… Get up." Brushing the depressing thoughts away, Darius hoarsely called to his brother. "Let's just… go home."

Draven didn't budge. He kept his head down, though Darius could see his shoulder starting to shake. His brother was going to cry again- it was always like that. Feeling nastier by the second, Darius swallowed nervously and then held out a hand to help the younger boy up.

"Come on, Draven." Darius tried, but his voice came out broken and wretched. "We're going ho-"

His brother abruptly slapped his proffered hand away and struggled to his feet by himself.

"Okay." Draven said, but his words were wooden and his eyes were dry. The kid didn't look at him, preferring to keep his head down as he practically half-limped and half-walked towards the general direction of the crèche they called home.

Darius watched his retreating form in shock.

_What have I done?_  He thought miserably.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**  Well there it is. Eventually everyone has to snap, and Darius is no exception. He's worked really hard and he's kept everything bottled in, but then again- Draven does what he wants. I tried to rationalize Draven's errant behavior in the best way possible, and to bring him to maturity in a realistic manner. Of course, his ego is only going to get bigger from here.

As for Talon, Riot has said that Talon didn't have anyone as he grew up. I figured that no one would teach him how to talk properly too- at least, until General du Couteau gets a hand on him. He also is easily swayed by treats (making him partial to apples was just a random choice really)- because he's still a child and he hardly ever leaves the Underground.


	7. The First Stone

_By the lakes that thus outspread_

_Their lone waters, lone and dead,—_

_Their sad waters, sad and chilly_

_With the snows of the lolling lily,—_

_By the mountains—near the river_

_Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—_

_By the grey woods,—by the swamp_

_Where the toad and the newt encamp,—_

_By the dismal tarns and pools_

_Where dwell the Ghouls,—_

_By each spot the most unholy—_

_In each nook most melancholy,—_

_There the traveller meets, aghast,_

_Sheeted Memories of the Past—_

_Shrouded forms that start and sigh_

_As they pass the wanderer by—_

_White-robed forms of friends long given,_

_In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven._

**Dream-Land (Edgar Allan Poe)**

* * *

**THREE DAYS LATER…**

For seemingly the nth time that year, Darius wondered how his parents had managed to cope. He knew he had been a problem child- the incident with Adrian de Croix had been one of many- but his parents had never complained or had snapped at him in the same way he had snapped at Draven.

His father had always praised him for standing up for himself, and his mother had always been there to dab away at the cuts and nurse him through his fevers. He didn't know exactly what his parents had gone through in their lives to be so calm and collected. All that he knew was that his mother had been a spy, and his father had donated a limb for the Noxian war effort. Even with his limited knowledge, against those sorts of life-changing events- what experience did he have to match?

 _A couple of street fights, several menial jobs and a run of bad decisions,_  Darius decided.  _But mostly just bad decisions._

Darius lay in his too-small cot, his feet were hanging off the end and his equally small blanket was loosely covering his waist. Outside the little window over his bed, he could hear and smell the world turning without him. The catcalls of drunken men and the sweet promises of prostitutes sometimes rang over the shouts of the nighttime merchants. The creaking of crates and turn of wooden wheels layered over the shrill calls of overworked horses and wheezing porters. The sticky scent of fermented fish baskets mixed with the pungent fumes of night soil as sewer hatches were pried open by crews of nightmen at the hour when hardly anyone was out on the streets to smell the piles of human excrement being pulled from the sewage. Every now and then there was a great cry, and then a pattering of bare feet and heavy, clanking footsteps following after its owner- a thief, perhaps.

Against the cacophony of noise, he could hardly hear Draven stirring in his bed, but there was a full moon outside, and there was plenty of light coming in from his little window, so he could see the dim outline of his brother's small body under the blankets in the dark as the younger child moved this way and that. He sat up and pushed the thin blanket away from himself as he watched the smaller form thrash about. Darius had not been able to sleep very well since he had lashed out against Draven, and it seemed as if his brother's nightmares had started again since then. Feeling the guilt rise in his stomach, he watched as the blanket was sent flying, and then he heard the telltale desperate gulps of air that hinted at an incoming assault of tears. He swung his legs over and stood up, padding barefooted over to his brother's side of the room and ignoring the sharp floorboards as it bit at his feet. Gathering the thin blanket up in his hands, he pulled it over Draven again and then watched the younger boy's face curl into various expressions of pain.

Draven, as far as he could tell, was still asleep. The younger boy had the misfortune of not being able to wake up until his nightmares nearly sent the kid's heart jumping out of his little mouth- or sent his thin body flying off the bed, whichever one went first. There wasn't much he could do until Draven woke up from his own dreams, so Darius walked back to his bed, pulled his pillow over his head and tried to go back to sleep.

Old men in white coats speculate that dreams are a process by which the human brain organizes memories and thoughts, and that nightmares stem from physical causes such as a fever or from psychological causes such as stress or traumatic events. People of the nomadic and mystical persuasion state that dreams are a prophetic window into the future, and that nightmares are caused by evil spirits that took residence in one's head. A cure of three lungs and three livers, dried frogs powdered and placed in drink is applied- after which the sick person would then say a couplet about how frogs in one's belly would devour what is bad and take the evil out of one's system. If by some chance one is not particularly interested in science or strange laxatives, however, one could simply attribute the bizarre nature of dreams to a certain species of plant named after a woman, and place the blame of nightmares to the consumption of an expired jar of pickles or perhaps a bad tuna sandwich.

Draven did not have an expired jar of pickles for dinner for the past twelve months- they were too poor to afford anything outside of gruel, really- but what he  _did_  have was a rather traumatic event. His parents had been executed in front of him, and even though he had tried to blot it out of his head, it had haunted him constantly. His dreams were always nightmares that made him cry in his sleep. One minute, he would be remembering his family as it had been. In the next minute, all he would feel was his brother's hand over his eyes and his mother's lifeblood on his face. And then he would be drowning in a sea of red, screaming and thrashing as the fluid entered his mouth and filled his lungs- and the last thing he would see was his mother's severed head, smiling at him as he drowned.

And then Draven would wake up- a tangle of quaking limbs, hoarse screams and sweat-stained sheets while his heart tried to launch itself out of his chest. In the first few months since the execution, he would cry incessantly for his mother even if he knew full well she was gone, and then his brother would always push himself out of his own bed and sit in the old rickety chair next to his pallet, watching him silently with an indecipherable face before placing a hand on his forehead and rubbing comforting circles into his temples until he finally went back to sleep- that had been how Dar had always stopped the tears, ever since Draven had been a newborn baby swaddled in rough cloth.

The nightmares had stopped by the fifth night of Darius' silent support, and he had slept easier since then- but after the incident at Onyx Ward where Darius had hit him hard enough to knock him off his feet, he found himself drowning in a crimson tide and tasting the metallic tang of blood in his mouth again- but instead of his mother's bleeding head it had been his brother watching him drown, face twisted in a grotesque mask, his eyes filled with nothing but utter hatred.

It had been three nights since the punching incident, and every time Draven woke up from his mortifying dream, he would simply cry silently for a good thirty minutes in the darkness, his shoulders heaving up and down as he buried his face in his straw pillow and tried his hardest to go back to sleep even if he was still too afraid to do so. Sometimes he could hear Darius stirring in his bed nearby, but each and every time the other boy did so, Draven held his breath and curled into a tight ball to stop himself from shaking- and then he would not hear anything from Darius' side of the room.

Draven didn't want to disturb him- in fact, he didn't want Darius to worry about him anymore because he wanted to show his brother that he was growing up like Dar wanted him to- but by the fourth night and a particularly nastier version of his recurring nightmare in which he was hounded by floating heads and carrion beetles, Darius seemingly had enough. As Draven was biting down on his rough blanket to stop his sobs, Darius got up from his bed and took his customary spot on the chair next to Draven's pallet once more.

The younger boy expected his brother's cool hand- but he stiffened in surprise when Dar decided to speak instead. Maybe the older boy didn't know that Draven was awake? It was too much to hope for.

"I don't even know why I bother talking to you when you're obviously asleep but..." He heard his brother sigh. "Well, I don't know how else to go about it- so I'll just talk. If you're not asleep, then good- at least I won't feel bad about talking to myself in the middle of the night while Matron's choking on her own spit."

Draven didn't move a muscle on the bed. What else was he supposed to do? Tell Dar he was actually awake? That wouldn't help. He was  _supposed_  to be asleep and he was  _supposed_  to not bother Dar anymore. What point would there be in masking his weakness if he was just going to go up to his brother and cry again? He was old enough. He didn't have to bother Darius with everything. Talking back would only keep Dar awake longer- and he knew Dar needed sleep more than he did. So Draven let him talk.

"I'm not sorry for hitting you," His brother's voice, soft as it was in the darkness of the room, sounded as if he was trying his best to be pragmatic against a knot of whatever it was in his throat that was making him sound stiff and strained. "That wasn't the first time you deserved something like that, but I will admit I went a little too far."

A little too  _far_? It was like calling a massive explosion a little spark- or calling the clouds above Noxus during monsoon season just a  _bit_  dark. The younger boy would never admit it to other people, but he had been afraid for his own life at that moment, and his brother had not been his brother at all. The blow to his jaw had hurt, but then again… he  _had_  called Darius something nasty.

"I guess… I was worried the whole day, and when you called me a coward- after what I've been going through to find your sorry ass- well," Darius made a gruff noise.

 _I wasn't being an idiot!_  Draven suppressed the urge to defend himself, but no- he wasn't listening to his brother justify his blows. No, he was supposed to be asleep. If he kept quiet for a bit longer- Dar would go back to sleep too.

"You know full well that we're in a bad position right now, and you still went off and… did the stupidest thing  **ever**. As  _usual_. It's the shit that you pull that fucking piss me off a lot of times." There was a pause, and then Darius' next words were spoken so fast that he practically bundled them together in a string of loose sentences. "When you fight everyone that looks at you. When you whine about being hungry. When you bitch about not getting anything nice. You don't even do anything useful."

Draven resisted the urge to scoff, and reminded himself yet again that he was  _supposed_  to be asleep. He had been in Onyx Ward to look for work that day- really, he had been going through all the Wards and looking for quick work for the past month or so with very little luck due to his thin frame- and the bullies had just caught up to him just as he was about to get temporary work as a courier.

"But fuck it, I'm rambling." His brother muttered under his breath.

 _You don't say?_  Draven thought sarcastically.

"Whatever. Look, I might be shitfaced and angry about stuff that you do, but you're still my brother," Even with the sentiment, it seemed as if Darius was trying to reassure himself of a simple fact. "It's just… It's been a little hard to work and… well, take care of you at the same time." Darius gave a heavy sigh. "I don't think I did a very good job of it- I  _want_  to, but you have to help me somehow."

 _I'm trying too._  Draven mused.  _Don't you see that?_

"I guess- what I wanted to say is that I… Well, I'm  _sorry_. I suppose." Darius finished awkwardly, the apology sounded stiff on his tongue. "I just… I just want you to be strong too. I know that Dad might've found an easier way to show you without hitting you that bad. Mom might've been a lot gentler- but Draven, they're gone. It's just you and me now, and I can't keep this up alone forever."

That was it? That was why his brother was always telling him off? Was that why Darius never stopped nagging him about finding a job, or berating him about eating or reminding him to taking care of himself while he was off at work? Darius had gone through the same things too- and his brother didn't look like he was giving in to the tears. He had only seen Dar cry  _once_ , and that had been the time his parents had volunteered themselves.

Draven wanted to be that strong too- he was so tired of crying that his head hurt just thinking about it, but his dreams were always so horrible, and his waking hours were never good either. He didn't know how Dar did it day-after-day.

He heard the chair creak slightly- maybe his brother was leaning over. Draven stayed still, eyes shut and mouth slightly open- and soon the hand was on his forehead, his brother's thumb massaging his temples once more.

"Crying again," Darius muttered with what Draven took to be a fond sigh. "Always crying. That's never going to change, is it?"

 _I'll change,_ Draven thought before sleep claimed him.  _I'll change!_

When Draven awoke the next morning, his brother's cot was empty, and there was a note on top of the rotten dresser. Whenever he had work and could not stay in the crèche for an extended period of time, Darius' way had always been to leave notes next to new clothes or cold bowls of soup. Draven had never known a time when his brother had ever failed to write down the daily reminders, but this was the first time that there was nothing next to the sheet of paper.

The younger brother pushed himself out of bed and padded to the dresser, grimacing at the way the rough boards bit at his feet. He pulled the note from the dresser and squinted at it in the dim morning light. Dark clouds were gathering on the horizon- monsoon season would be coming soon, and Draven stared worriedly up at the hole in the rafters that Darius still had to repair before he sighed and turned his attentions back to reading.

Their mother didn't have much time to have them work on their penmanship before the execution had occurred, so the five items on the note were scrawled in his brother's untidy hand- Dar had probably written everything down using cheap watered-down ink and a broken quill as the text blotted out completely in some areas:

1) Don't be a - idiot.

2) Go find a job. If not, stay in -.

3) Will be back by nightfall. Ask Matron for g-.

4) Stay out of Matron's way if staying in crèc-.

5) Don't be - idiot.

Draven made a grumpy noise in his throat as he put the note back on the dresser. He had promised himself that he would change, and today was a good time to start. Seeing as Dar hadn't left any breakfast, Draven picked up a pair of worn boots, hopped onto the windowsill and climbed out onto the roof. There, he found the basin of rainwater that Dar had put a long time ago and pulled his clothes off. After washing off sleep and grime from yesterday and shaking himself dry like a dog, he pulled his clothes back on, forced his too-big feet into his too-small shoes and scanned the streets below.

Dar had told him once that opportunity was everywhere if he knew how to look for it. His limbs hanging off the edge of the slate roof tiles, he shaded his eyes against the light of the sun and squinted down at the bustling streets of Sapphire Ward. There was some sort of thing going on off by West Gate, and he could tell because there was a crowd gathering for some reason and the people- nigh ant-like from his vantage point- were converging upon it.

That was it- that was his chance. The small boy shimmied down the drainpipe and hit the cobbled ground with a barely withheld yelp of pain- his shoes were too small and Dar was still learning how to cut leather properly- before he straightened up and forced himself to walk. By the time he made it to the hubbub, he was struggling against an unforgiving mass of arms and legs, and managed by sheer luck and his small frame, to come close to the center of attention.

At the heart of the mob, he found a woman. She was easily taller than most of the men around her- members of the city guard from what he could tell of their armor. Unlike other Noxian nobles that he had seen, who had spent too much on disturbingly pallid makeup and brightly colored stones and dyed cloth that made absolutely no sense, she was well-toned and tanned, her breasts were large and pressed firmly against her bodice. The colors of her elaborate but practical dress were black and gold, with rich blood red rubies set within golden chains- there were plenty of those- and little golden buttons polished to a bright sheen. Her hazel eyes shone bright gold in the light of the sun, perfectly formed lips painted with tempestuous red, short black hair framing her aristocratic face in the most perfect manner. She wore a rather impressive diadem: it was a golden chain bearing a single diamond at the center of her forehead.

As beautiful as she was, it seemed that the rest of the world bored her. There were many people who so obviously admired her, calling her name and waving their arms- outright begging to be acknowledged by a goddess who chose to walk amongst mortals. For his part, Draven openly gaped at her- swept away not by her beauty, but by the way she commanded attention. He wondered how she had come to be, why she was standing in a Ward that catered to the middle-class, speculated on she managed to hold on to everyone's attention without even speaking a single word.

Her smoky eyes scanned the crowd of individuals, her mouth turned in a smile- but to Draven it seemed nothing more than a snarl of displeasure- these people, these  _animals_ , they did not deserve to see her. Where Darius would have turned his head away in disgust, Draven drank in the experience- he wanted so much to be in her place, to be dressed in finery and to be watched as if the entire world revolved about him.

And then suddenly, her wandering eyes rested on him- squashed between a tailor and a blacksmith clamoring for her graces. She tilted her head and pointed at  _him_.

"You," Her voice was absolutely divine. It was no doubt the product of maybe decades of phonetics practice, quality education and high breeding. - the exact opposite of Draven. "You will do."

"Me?" Draven squeaked out.

"I require a porter, you see." She said the final word with a flourish. "And you will do nicely."

Draven forced himself out of the throng, collapsing on his knees in front of her. He bit back the pain that emanated from his shoes and practically shuddered when he smelled her perfume- lilies and something else he was too poor to have ever known at that moment- as she placed her fingers under his chin and slowly lifted his head.

"There is no need to bow," She said, even though all he could detect with his childish senses was a pleased look upon her face.

"I fell." Draven said stupidly.

"You poor, tired child- then perhaps I should find another porter?" She eyed him sympathetically, but there was something else in that gaze-  _victory_  perhaps, or something even more.

Draven scrambled to his feet quicker than ever, and shook his head at her. "No! No, I want to do it! Please let me do it!"

She smiled- a true smile now, but he wasn't quite sure what it meant. "Are you quite certain you can handle the burden?"

"Anything! I can carry anything! Crates, cases, umbrellas- I can carry it all for you!" He said quickly, afraid that if he showed further indecision, she would turn her gaze away from him. She gave a laugh- full and haughty as she was- and then turned her back to him and the rest of the jealous crowd.

"Come with me, child." She said.

Draven followed, like a moth flying towards the hypnotizing fire of a gas lantern.

Her name, he learned later on, was Emilia. She had refused to give him her House name, stating that he was not yet worthy to know of it. Despite the obvious blow against his lot in life, Draven had taken what praise she gave happily, following her perfumed heels like a dog starved of treats being given a morsel of spoiled meat. Where Darius would have fought back against her machinations, even just a bit, Draven was too young to realize what was happening, and acquiesced to her every request.

Draven carried suitcases upon suitcases for her, across steep streets and over paved hills. He placed his own clothes into puddles so that her shoes and delicate toes would not become wet. She visited several stores, purchasing paper-wrapped packages and having him carry so much he thought that if he fell over he would die- but he would die happily. Wherever Emilia went, a crowd was destined to follow, and he enjoyed being in her wake as much as she abhorred the attentions of common men. By the end of the day, when he was absolutely certain his boots were leaving behind bloody prints in the stones, she pressed a single silver coin into his hand and smiled down at him.

"Thank you, boy." Emilia said- she had never bothered to learn his name.

"Will you ever need me again?" He asked innocently, his eyes as wide and as pitiful to look at like a lost dog.

"In due time," She said mysteriously, giving him a little pat on the cheek – as a master would to an overworked horse ready to be shot. "In due time, boy."

Darius would have objected- one silver for a day's work and a month's worth of recuperating from shoes that were too small was too little a fee- but Draven clutched the single coin against his chest like a priceless treasure. It was, quite possibly, the first thing he had ever worked for in his entire life, and as much as his feet were screaming at him, he was too overwhelmed with a sense of achievement and infatuation to be bothered.

Eagerly, Draven ran back to the crèche, but on the way he thought he saw his brother in the window of a tavern. Curious, in the way that children were when they were about to come across something they were never supposed to see, he ducked into the establishment and hid himself behind a nearby pillar, watching his brother talk to a heavily battered man across him.

Draven had seen the man before- Sion, his father's friend. This was a particularly noisy tavern, and he would have been straining to hear their conversation if it was not for the fact that Darius' voice was turning into something loud and laden with jagged stones.

"You look tired." Sion leaned back into the chair, the small thing creaking under the weight of his muscles and his armor- dented and scratched beyond belief like the rest of him.

"I've been working." Darius replied offhandedly.

"How is your brother?" Sion tilted his head. It was a small miracle that his battle-scarred face could somehow still convey emotion.

"He's fine." Darius replied shortly.

"Right. Are you good with weapons? How's that going?" Sion asked casually- a bit too much, if Dar's suspicious expression was anything to take by.

"I'm alright with a sword," His older brother replied slowly, measuring his words carefully. "And knives, but I've been thinking about following in dad's footsteps- with the bearded axe, I mean."

"Axes. Great! I'll have one made." The false optimism was making even Draven skeptical.

"How  _thoughtful_." Darius said sarcastically. "So what do you really want from me?"

"Just your time." Sion replied.

His brother made a noise of impatience and furrowed his brows at the soldier across him- Draven had seen that look on his face many times before when Dar couldn't tolerate any more beating around the bush. "I don't think either of us are particularly suited for talking. I'll get right to the point: asking to meet me would mean that you want something from me."

"What if I just want to know how Hystaspes' kids are doing?" Sion retorted, raising an eyebrow at the youth across him. Darius gave him a flat look- and Draven resisted the urge to laugh. Dar was  _pissed_.

Instead of quailing back in fear, Sion gave a belly full of laughter and smashed his hand on the table. "Your parents really did do their best with you."

"I try. Every day." His brother replied dryly. "Get to the point."

Sion pulled out a sealed envelope from a satchel at his side and slid it across to his brother. Draven couldn't see it too well from his vantage point, but from what he could gather, it looked very official: it was made from nice paper, and had a black wax seal on the front and formal-looking handwriting at the back.

"The Military Academy at Boram's Point is opening its doors to officer candidate hopefuls two months from now," Sion's lip quirked up in a smirk. "That envelope contains, if you choose to sign it, your recruitment papers."

Draven blinked- he had heard of Boram's Point. Who didn't in Noxus? It was the first and finest military academy in the entire city-state. The only people who went there were the rich and the deserving. In order to be considered as a candidate, one had to be recommended by an active-duty ranking military official, or by a House head.

Darius looked like he was holding back so many questions. Draven watched as his older brother drummed his fingers on the table in thought, before the teenager finally chose to reply: "… Well, I can't say I'm not interested. Any reason for the sudden act of charity?"

Draven felt the first stirrings of fear in his gut. He was happy for his brother, he  _really_  was. Even he knew how much of a big deal Boram's Point was- but still, if his brother was going there, that would mean-

"Word gets around with such a high profile execution- a lot of interested parties saw how you dealt with it. Frankly, they were rather impressed." Sion shrugged his wide shoulders, chainmail jingling merrily. "So, they dug around a bit, told me a few things, asked for a couple of favors, gave the right amount of gold... the usual."

His brother leaned forward- his interest had been piqued further. Draven suppressed the urge to reveal himself- he wanted to know more, as horrible as that sounded. "Is there any chance that some of that gold would make it to me?"

"There's a big chance." Sion admitted. "If you sign those papers, you get a monthly stipend, and your sponsor is going to pay for your food, board and education."

"How  _generous_." Darius remarked dryly. "What are you really trying to do here, Sion?"

"Just being a good friend of the family." Sion replied innocently. "And a good messenger- as unbelievable as that sounds for you."

"It's been a year since dad died, and you've never even approached us once." Darius pointed out. Draven watched as his brother's voice seemed to get more thunderous by the second. "Now you just come here, and expect me to take whatever gifts you have so I can be in your debt?"

Admirably, Sion stood his ground. "Look kid, this is  _Noxus_. If you don't want to have a career, that's fine with me. I'll tell your sponsor that you aren't interested in a stipend or a  _real_  military education." The warrior tilted his head. "Hell, I'll even tell them you're too proud to accept the sponsorship- bureaucrats  _love_  reasons like that. It gives them some fuel to throw."

"I'm not saying I don't want to be in the military, I'm saying that I don't want to owe anyone  _anything_." Darius retorted. "I'm doing my best to keep Draven and myself afloat, and we're managing so far, but if I get to Boram's Point, it'll be because I worked for it, not because some foppish old man with a powdered wig thought I was a good bet."

"Easy, son." Sion raised both his hands. "No one said you didn't work for it. You deserve that place on the candidate list, I can tell you that. Even if you are a good four years younger- that's good. When you get out of Boram's, you'll be ready for conscription as a commissioned officer."

"I'm not your son," Darius gritted out. "I want to know just who it is that thinks I'm a good option to throw money at right now before I even say yes to anything that's going to take four years of my life away. I don't have anyone else I can trust who can look after my brother right now."

"I can do that," Sion volunteered a bit too quickly.

 _No_ , Draven thought morosely. A world without Dar over his shoulder was a world he was not ready to have, as strange as that sounded. In the future, of course, he would be rejoicing at his brother's absences, but as of now, he was still so young- and he had not spent even a week away from his brother's company since their parents had died.

Quite suddenly, there was a tap on the glass window next to him. Draven turned his head and found himself face-to-beak with a crow the size of his head, its large eyes shining almost intelligently in the growing dusk. The boy staggered back in shock- he didn't even hear it land on the windowsill. The large avian eyed him- as if it was measuring his mettle- before it gave a keening cry and an impatient flutter of its wings. Was it asking him to open the window?

Stupidly, the boy reached over and pulled the latch away. The bird pushed the glass window open with its head- how strong was it really?- and then hopped inside the establishment. It fluttered up to the rafters and gave a keening call. To Draven's amazement, he saw Sion's small eyes dart up to the large black bird, and saw a strange emotion within. Darius would later tell his brother that he had recognized the emotion as  _fear_.

Like a puppet being played on a string, Sion's eyes darted back to the youth sitting across him and he began to speak in a hurried tone. "Your sponsor! Well, alright, I'll tell you this much: he's-  _fairly_  high ranking and works for Battlefield Intelligence. Like all the other officers from Boram's old guard, he's from a House."

Darius raised an eyebrow at him- the quick change of heart had obviously made his brother suspicious. "Which one?"

"Ever heard of the House of Swain?" At that name, the bird gave an impatient squawk, and stomped a large foot down on the rafters. ' _Get on with it!'_  it seemed to say, or perhaps it meant something else entirely.

 _Were crows usually that intelligent?_  Draven found himself wondering. He would've reached out to touch it, but Darius' reply tore his attention away from capturing the mystery bird.

"No." His brother sounded displeased, uncertain.

"Well then, there's a start for you!" Sion exclaimed. "Gods above, it's not that hard. Just put your ear on the ground and find out for yourself."

Dar frowned at him. "Why can't you tell me?"

"Trust me when I say that I already said too much." Sion said nervously. "If I talk about it a bit more, I'm going to turn into crowbait in the morning."

 _Crowbait_. Draven looked at the bird. It puffed up its chest and stared down at him imperiously- much like Emilia had.

"You sound afraid." Darius remarked, studying the older warrior's expressions and reactions with as much caution as a big-game hunter had in the savannah.

"When you know what the guy is capable of doing, you tend to be a bit  _more_  afraid than you usually do." Sion said.

"… And he's interested. In my progress." It was not a question.

"I'd tell you to run for it, but then again you'll be beheaded for desertion." The warrior gave a nervous laugh. "Look, just take my offer, kid. It's all there for you- money, education, the chance to make something out of yourself, a blazing start in your little quest to take back the family name?"

"… How do I know that this isn't going to screw me and Draven over?" Darius asked him finally. It seemed that even he was starting to be swayed. For his part, Draven only felt more panic grasp his heart. If his brother was going to take the offer, he would be alone for the next four years.

"You  _don't_." Sion stated simply. "But trust me when I say that he'll get you places, alright? Places you need to go- out of that stupid rat hole you call a home and into something a bit more reputable- like a residence in Garnet Ward?"

Darius' expression flitted into a snarl- the older man had just invaded a seclusion he worked so hard to have- but Sion was having none of it. " _Noxus_ , kid. I told you. People watch. People  _know_."

Darius grumbled something under his breath- a string of bad words as far as Draven could tell.

"I'm trying to be your friend here. We both don't like being pushed around, I can tell." Sion tilted his head. "So can we stop bickering about something  _good_? Are you going to sign the papers?"

After what seemed like an eternity spent in thought, of weighing what options he had versus a possibly brighter future for himself and for his brother, Darius gave a damning nod.

Draven decided he had seen enough.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  I took my time with this, mostly because I wasn't sure how to sequence events properly. But here we'll see what was actually happening from Draven's side of the story, and really- executions are horrible things for children to see. I didn't think he'd recover from it as fast as he could have wanted to- because his life was a sheltered one up until that point. We can see that he tries though, and I wanted to put it across that he isn't some sort of wimp that Darius carries around with him for the rest of his life. Draven still has some backbone, but it's not easy to see because he's still so young.


	8. Those Who Covet Life and Fear Death

_  
I saw edges of myself being flattened by rain,_

_could smell the earth too and thought of the years_

_of rot that made the smell, the rot of my father and his father_

_and all those who had gone before and how we eat the root_

_of the earth and then turn into rot ourselves just as_

_pieces of dirt were grinding away between my teeth and tongue,_

_my bit of gristle being stirred into earth's stew._

**The Grand Army of the Republic**   **(John Spaulding)**

* * *

**TWO MONTHS LATER...**

There are many things that could be said of the Noxian military- and by extension, the rest of Noxian society itself. The reclusive warrior tribe of Rakkor at the slopes of Mount Targon regard Noxian infantry as worthy opponents- which is certainly saying something considering the fact that the Rakkor themselves are seen as ruthless and uncompromising by the rest of Runeterra due to the grueling Rite of Kor; the adage 'kill or be killed' taken to the utmost extreme as Rakkor elders essentially force every child to kill a weaker member of their society in order to be addressed a mature adult- with one notable exception in the form of the Radiant Dawn herself, Leona.

The Piltoverians see the Noxian army as a roughhewn club wielded by an ogre. There are no tactics; no intelligence involved in their movements- there is only raw, unadulterated strength and a one-track mind for death and destruction. However, residents of the City of Progress do respect the Noxian intelligence community- which is a valid reason given that Battlefield Intelligence analysts and Tactical Reconnaissance operatives often work hand in hand with the scientists and innovators of Zaun, a neighboring city-state and Piltover's intellectual and techmaturgical rival.

The Ionians, diplomatic and philosophical as ever, largely perceive the entirety of Noxus as having lost its direction in life, steered into irredeemable depths by its war-mongering leaders. The military then is a vehicle of propaganda, and its people a tormented race in sore need of enlightenment and lasting peace. As a patient healer must be to a traumatized child, Ionian ambassadors steadily work on Noxian diplomats during important meetings, coaxing and pleading them away from what the peace-loving people perceive as rash and destructive actions.

The Freljord, still unformed during Darius and Draven's childhoods, would nonetheless consider Noxus as a formidable enemy. The famed 'Barbarian Pacification Campaign' would later wipe out a majority of the northern tribes in the typical Noxian manner: using efficient military stratagems designed by the greatest generals Noxus had to offer, unwavering ruthless soldiers would systematically hunt down and kill barbarian tribesmen by the thousands- women, children, none would be spared. It would be a thorough and clinical way to terminate an enemy, and it would be such a show of strength that even the densest tribal in the tundra would recognize Noxian might.

And then there are the Demacians, a collectivist society and the very ideological antithesis of Noxians. Ruled by the illustrious Lightshield family patriarch, Jarvan III, Demacians see their Noxian counterparts as cold, uncaring beings devoid of any emotion except for greed and wrath. For them, a city-state must do its part and leave no man behind, even at the cost of national greatness and achievement, whereas Noxians perceive the duty of carrying such societal baggage as a sin. Noxus and its personal, individualistic policies are seen as evil itself, in the same way that Noxus sees Demacia's emphasis on benevolence and altruism as a futile effort, a mere bandage slapped over the brutal realities of life.

The two city-states had been at war as far as anyone could remember. And while Noxians would say that their military is more effective, most of the aristocratic families would also agree that Demacians seem to be more  _determined_  to win their timeless war, for the lack of a better word. In Demacia, oddly enough, the same perception remains: the Demacian military is more effective, but the Noxians are too stubborn to consider themselves as beaten.

It should come to no surprise then that the military factors greatly in both city-states, but unlike Demacia, Noxians live and breathe conflict and death- out of the other city-states, perhaps only the Rakkor and the Freljordan tribe of the Winter's Claw understand what it truly means for those who live within the foreboding granite walls. Since they had been children, Darius and Draven had been surrounded by death and squalor, by the proofs of life that dictated to them ' _mercy is weakness, and weakness is death'_. The same would hold true for Talon, the Blade's Shadow, who was born in the darkness of the tunnels, who knew no love and had nothing to call his own. Even Katarina, the Sinister Blade, would grow up swathed in delicate silk and blades dripping with blood. Each and every Noxian alive and breathing won the game that was life within their state- but their position would never truly be secure from interlopers- foreign or domestic.

As befitted a people primed for war, who never felt truly safe even in the walls of their own state, Noxian military academies were prevalent. There was a school for artillery officers, a school for quartermasters- there even were schools for battlefield engineers and logistics officers. The military was a Noxian constant, and like all else within the state, to be commended and acknowledged as a graduate of even one of those academies was a great achievement in itself. Above all those institutes, however, the Military Academy at Boram's Point was the very peak. Largely due to its demanding and perfectionist curriculum, the nation's best and brightest officers all graduated from Boram's Point. Thus, to be considered as an officer-candidate, as Sion had informed Darius all those weeks ago, was proof of one's personal ability.

It was the largest school in the state- easily dwarfing the Basic Infantry School that lay within the southern swamps. Nestled in a large valley filled with fire-burnt trees and deep chasms carved by prehistoric rivers, the school's architecture mirrored the apocalyptic landscape it nestled in: wrought-iron gates and fences, shale grey walls and sharp obsidian steeples, grimacing demonic gargoyles and cobbled stones. Inside, the buildings were cavernous and eerily hollow like the bones of a giant whale, covered wall-to-wall with ancient tapestries of battles long gone, suits of battered armor in every alcove- proofs of the Noxian warrior society as far as the eye could see. The classrooms were a simple arrangement of blackened chairs and desks- the true lessons lay within the gymnasium and the wasteland outside.

The gymnasium, or, as the candidates themselves called it, 'the Wolf's Pit', was a large ring made of sharp black volcanic sand encircled by a grandstand of granite. Various weapons were kept inside a nearby shed, and when the hour for sparring came, candidates would work against each other using real weapons, sharpened to a killer edge. It was not at all uncommon for candidates to behead someone by accident- in fact it was encouraged by the instructors themselves. Only the strong would survive Boram's Point.

Field exercises were held in the scarred landscape, using real weapons and real tactics. Horror stories were plentiful: of being left in the field to be eaten by the crows, of being starved and hounded by instructors for nights on end, of being forced to conduct tactical maneuvers without sleep or water. There was nothing false about Noxian military training at Boram's Point- everything was real, so that when the direst situations ever occurred, the officers would know what to do. Even with the knife hanging above their heads, every single person who had ever entered the infamous campus considered it a great honor to have even stepped on the grounds.

There must have been a thousand of them outside the gates, most of them young men and women carrying a single canvas bag- they had been banned from bringing any more than one. Most of them had looks of wonderment on their faces and curious questions streaming out of their mouths. There were some veterans who managed to gain passage into the school- if it was not obvious from their scarred visage, it was the way they walked and talked. They were sure of themselves, of their abilities and their strengths, more than the wiry youths around them. Darius, on the other hand, didn't feel as if he belonged anywhere. He was fourteen years old, even if he didn't look it, and he was surrounded by both the battle-hardened and the inexperienced. He wondered what would happen to him, like the young did, but at the same time his vision of the future was tempered with what he had gone through, as the old did.

And the future was not bright, from his perspective at least. He had done his best in the two months he had to teach Draven how to live by himself for the next four years. There would be no furlough from Boram's Point- no brief return to life outside the wrought-iron gates. It would be four straight years of the most intense training of his life, and four straight years of Draven doing as he wanted with the stipend he would send back. Four years of rigorous learning, and four years of Draven running amok and doing as he pleased. Needless to say, Darius was not at all comfortable with leaving his brother to his own devices, but this was an opportunity, and he could not say no.

He would have fretted a bit more, though he would never admit it, when the gates of the academy swung open and an entire column of men and women in full polished battle gear marched out to some unseen cadence. Like small fish making way for a giant whale, the mob of impatient youths and impressed veterans let the column of soldiers split them in two. Silently thanking his height, Darius watched over the heads of the other eager recruits as snare drums beat a marching song.

The grey-eyed man's hair framed his dignified face, thick and straight; the color of burnished iron. He had a cleanly trimmed beard and goatee and bore lines around his mouth and eyes. There was a faint scar around his temple, a bizarre half-moon shape the size of a large ring. He was not very tall- his head only came up to the shoulders of his guards. He was of a slight build; Darius felt that he could have jumped on him and broken his back if he pleased. Still, he was clad in a high collared black double-breasted coat, the Noxian crest, elaborate gold and silver braid and five bars on his rank epaulettes indicated his rank to be that of a Major. There was a sword strapped to his side: a deadly white wave-bladed sword laden with black runes that looked like it had seen more battles than Darius had seen summers.

"My name," The man spoke with such a deep baritone that if there had been a god on Runeterra, that would have been his voice. "Is Ignatius, of the House of Montfort. I was given authority to administer to Boram's Point thirty years ago- while most of you were still specks in your mother's wombs. I am your Commander, and the final judge that you  **must**  impress if you wish to leave these walls alive."

"I appear weak to you. That is not a question." He gestured to the tall armored men flanking him. "Indeed, I appear to be quite beyond my years- but like all else within these walls, what you initially perceive is not what you will experience."

Commander de Montfort held his hands behind his back, scanning their faces with a pleased look. "I only have one question that I wish to ask to  _all_  of you. If even one of you can answer me correctly, then you do not need to be here, because it is the only lesson that Boram's Point has to offer you."

He gave them a secretive smile, and then spread his hands in the typical show of bemusement. "Candidates, what is Noxus?"

Darius stared at him. What was the point in asking foolish questions?

"The city-state." Said one veteran. A few individuals nervously laughed at his wit.

"Yes, if one should choose to answer the question literally," For his part, Commander de Montfort did not seem to be insulted by the veteran's gall. In fact, he seemed rather amused. "But that response is for the foolish and the uninitiated."

"The land." Another volunteered.

"This land is known by another name, but it was lost through time." Commander de Montfort replied demurely. "That is yet another fool's response, and shows your lack of intellect."

"Hell." One ventured bravely.

"That is an amusing comparison, given that we are in such a place." Commander de Montfort gestured to the fire-burnt landscape about them. "If this is what you perceive Hell to be, candidate, I will enjoy breaking you."

Darius stared at the other people around him, wondering what it was that they were thinking. This questioning was making him doubtful of his future within the Academy. He didn't know anything about philosophy, or literature, or art or even music. His father had taught him nothing of that, and his mother barely had time to introduce him to what she called 'classics'. All he knew was the sound of his tortured stomach after another three hours of not being fed, the feel of dirt underneath his fingernails, the rough handle of the axe that Sion had given to him to practice with, and the smell of blood on his scraped knees and hands. How was he going to compete, if the technical lessons of the Academy were going to be on concepts he had absolutely no idea about?

He stayed silent, as the Commander and other, more knowledgeable recruits bantered back and forth.

"Derivatives." Commander de Montfort said after the seventh answer. "All of you, answering in derivatives: the land, the state, the country, the government. All of you are wrong. Look elsewhere, beyond the physical aspects that you can see, that you can feel, that you can touch. What is Noxus? At its heart? At its very core?"

 _All this talking is making my head hurt,_  Darius decided.

"Noxus is strength." A voice said. Moving as one, the mob turned to look at the source. He was a young man with blue eyes and dark hair of average height and build, with an aristocratic face and educated tones in his voice.

Commander de Montfort gave an elaborate bow as soon as he realized who it was. "My Lord Darkwill. You've grown."

The youth seemed to flush- what with a thousand eyes staring at him in complete and utter surprise. "It will only be Keiran." He said determinedly. "And I wish for no special treatment- that is why I am here."

"Little boy wants to prove to his pappy and big brother that he's got some balls to go to a school his dad renamed after himself." One of the veterans commented.

As great as the insult had been to his House, Keiran Darkwill did not react. He merely stared at the veteran- perhaps he was shocked beyond belief, or perhaps he was thinking of how to best smother the veteran as the man slept. After a second, the youth cast his glance away, and Darius understood exactly  _why_  he did nothing.

 _It is more insulting to be ignored, rather than to be taken as a threat, after all._  Darius thought.

Commander de Montfort was smiling. "Candidate Keiran," He stressed the name now- acquiescing to the youth's request to be treated the same as everyone else. "Is correct: Noxus is strength."

The thousand eyes turned back to the older man, drinking in his pleased smile and his words. "In Noxus, the feeble perish in the darkness, as they deserve, and the worthless are left behind. That is how it has been since time immemorial, and that is why Noxus is strength, given form in its people. Let this be your first lesson, candidates: there is no point in showing kindness or benevolence to others. The weak will remain weak, and cowards will never obtain true strength of character. They will never be strong, and so they must be culled. By showing no mercy, we cut off the tumors of society that hold us back from conquest and glory. By purging our society of those that seek to cripple it with their cowardice and indolence, we prevail. A strong people create a strong state."

Commander de Montfort was talking faster now, his voice giving more weight to his words. "A strong state demands nothing but the strongest officers to lead it, and that is why this institution stands within these forsaken lands, this harsh, demonic terrain, so far from everything and everyone that you know and love. Only through fire can gold be purified, the most valuable elements weaned from worthless rock. We will test you. Most of you will fail. A few of you will be strong enough to survive. This few will be the strongest, the most determined among you-they shall be the most ideal Noxian officers, chosen through trials of blood and steel."

Darius would forever remember this moment as the time in his life that he realized he loved Noxus for what it was: the state of the strong, whose families obtained prestige rightfully in battle, and earned glory and prosperity through adversity. The current hold that aristocrats had over the city-state was temporary.  _They_  were not strong. He knew that with Adrian's death, and with Maynard's inability to stop his parents from having a death that  _they_  had deemed acceptable. Filled with fervor, he found that he could see clearly now- which person knew that they deserved their House name, which person walked over the bones of their ancestors to hold power under false pretenses- he  _knew_.

Eventually, he would act upon it. The Culling of the Weak, historians would later call his purge, but Darius was still only fourteen years old as of now, and there was still much grief and toil to be had before he would finally bring his plans into motion.

Commander de Montfort clasped his hands behind his back once more. "You have answered my question. I shall not tarry any longer. Go now." The old man said simply as the ranks of his guard closed about him. "Your company names are on your papers, as are your residence halls and room numbers."

And then as quickly as his vanguard had come, they once again formed into orderly lines about him and marched back into the direction of a large and imposing building that lay to the north. Darius joined the nervous throng as they followed in the wake of the armored brigade.

"They're going to the Cathedral." He overhead of the battle-scarred veterans saying. "Finally done with all that pompous talk. Was getting annoying."

"What's that?" Eager to find out more about their surroundings, the nearest candidates grouped about the older man- whose nose had been broken too many times to be recognizable, whose hair was falling in thin wisps down his weatherworn face.

"That's where the Instructors live." The man said. "Them officers in the infantry used to call it the Cathedral because that's where God dwells. Our God now, you understand?"

As he walked, Darius craned his head to look at the Cathedral, with its tall spires and buttresses reminiscent of upturned and shattered bones, the massive glass windows covered with web-like black lines. Idly, he wondered how the candidates' residence halls were going to look like. If the rest of the buildings followed Darkwill's tendency for spikes and skulls, after all, then maybe he was going to be living in a spike-filled cavernous dormitory.

His band came to a stop in front of five instructors, who were holding ledgers and inspecting papers. Darius fell in line easily, and when it was his turn, the Instructor stared at him, and then back at the ledger he held in his hands as if he wanted to check something- his age, maybe?

Darius remained silent. Would they reject him, then? Right at the gates? He had been told there would be no complaint, as long as he could stand the abuse, as long as he remained strong and focused on what he wanted. That was the Noxian ideal- at least, that was what he had been told. If they turned him away now, he did not know what he would do.

But the man did not seem to mind. He merely cocked his head to the right. "Dominance Company, of the 42nd Training Standard."

Unlike what Darius had imagined, the residence hall was an almost-mundane longhouse made of stone, slate tiles and the same spiked architecture. There were no walls inside the residence hall- only beds upon beds in two organized rows. There were two footlockers at the foot of each double bunk bed, for hygiene and personal things. There were names tacked on the bedsteads- Darius found his easy enough: it was the one closest to the bathroom. His bunkmate was a long-nosed man named Lazare, of the House of Richelieu- but as soon as he discovered that Darius had no House name, he had ceased talking to him and busied himself with preparing his things.

 _That's fine._  Darius thought to himself as he stowed his canvas bag under the bed.

A glance about the room showed many impatient faces, but out of all of them- only Darius, a veteran named Seamus and Keiran Darkwill himself were deep in thought. It was odd feeling, being amongst people who never were supposed to be his peers, but Darius didn't care for them. He only wanted to learn. It seemed as if Seamus and Keiran were thinking the same way- they busied themselves with unpacking, and hardly talked to anyone else.

"Form ranks, you worthless bags of meat!" Came a sudden deep booming howl. "Form ranks or I'll flay your hide until you bleed from your eyes!"

Suddenly, everything was  _moving_. Darius clipped another candidate in the eye as he made a mad dash for the front of his bunk, and he did his best to stand at attention by mimicking Seamus off to his far right. They were a ragtag bunch, all of them. Some were slouching. Others simply didn't seem to care- but the moment  **she**  came, they all found themselves standing a little straighter- and quaking in their boots.

A woman wearing a high collared black dress coat that bore dual rows of polished buttons with a gold and red ceremonial braid and triple bars on her shoulders entered the longhouse. She wore black knee high leather boots with a single bloody stripe down the sides, - signifying her seniority and her authority. Her hands were covered by imposing gauntlets laden with glowing runic sigils. She was beautiful, in a cold and savage way. Her platinum hair was bound in a neat bun- there were no stray strands on her face. He could tell from the lines on her brow and on her cheeks that she was at least twenty years older than he was, if not more. She did not have a sword by her side like the armored behemoths who had divided the crowd earlier. Instead, two supple black leather harnesses crossed over her waist, holding obsidian daggers that glowed with a red malevolent light.

"Candidates of Dominance Company, I bid you all welcome to Boram's Point." She had a ferocious gleam to her grey eyes and a sort of displeased snarl on her features as she began to pace up and down the aisle. "My name is Suzanne, of the House of Castellamonte. You will address me as Chief Instructor di Castellamonte, Ma'm di Castellamonte or Chief di Castellamonte. Whatever orders the Commander sees fit to pass upon you, I will carry out with conviction. Do not mistake my gender for a weakness- you will die. I have spent twenty-three years here, and I will not tolerate disrespect from any one of you. There are no exceptions to this rule."

Her voice was oddly hoarse. No doubt she had to work to make herself heard. Her hands were at her back so that she seemed to be  _more_  than everyone else around her, and she cocked her head to two other similarly dressed but less-decorated men next to her. Her awe-inspiring presence was such that even Darius hadn't noticed the two of them until she had made them look.

"Assisting me is James, of the House of Krieg-Windsor, and William, of the House of Strongbow. You will address them as Senior Instructor Krieg-Windsor and Assistant Instructor Strongbow only. I will expect you to show them the same respect that you are obligated to show me."

William Strongbow was red-haired and young but his sharp green eyes showed nothing but frost. He was clearly an archer. If his House name was not an indication of his prowess, his right arm was- in the way of men who have held back seventy pounds of force using only two fingers, his right arm bulkier than his left. He bore an unstrung ebony bow, also shining with elaborate runes, inside a quiver of black-fletched arrows.

The other man, James Krieg-Windsor, was gray-haired, blue-eyed and jagged as the wasteland around them. He had a patch over his eye and a gruesome scar on the left side of his face that twisted the rest of his face into a permanent and disturbing snarl. He was leaning on a battle hammer, and like the rest of the other two instructors, it was made of the blackest obsidian and laden with yellow runes that quivered and glowed like fireflies.

"Make no mistake, candidates." Chief Instructor di Castellamonte said dispassionately. " **I**  am your premier instructor, and within these walls, I am  **omnipotent**. I will be at your side during your waking hours; I will be in your minds during your hard-earned rest. I will be the voice in your head when you think, and I will never,  _ever_  permit you to forget the principles that we seek to imbue within you."

She cast them all a snide glance, and Darius found her staring at him as she continued to speak. Out of respect, he kept his eyes straight at the wall. "You will abide here for four years of your miserable lives. By the end of your stay, you will have the ability to coerce strength from troops who have none. You will know battlefield tactics kept secret from the rest of the world. You will be a typhoon of blood and flames on the battlefield, a storm of ruthlessness and pure unadulterated power. You will be ready to dominate those who dare to oppose us: the worthless fools of Demacia, Ionia, Piltover- even the warrior-recluse society at the slopes of Mount Targon- but only  _if_  you survive."

Her pacing had reached nigh hypnotic levels as she swaggered back and forth through the single aisle in the hall. "There are approximately a thousand of you hopefuls. A thousand children who dream of becoming an officer within the glorious Noxian military- but by the time your second year ends, I, and the rest of your instructors, will have weeded out the weak-minded, faint-hearted and physically unfit- through a rite of passage here that all must undergo. We call it The Crucible, and like the tool, it shall test you in the most painful and unimaginable ways possible."

Chief di Castellamonte was still speaking, though she was getting hoarser every second. "Forever strong. That is our nation's creed, and if you step out of these gates again after four years here, you will have it engraved on your very  **bones**." She thumped a gauntleted fist to her chest determinedly.

There was silence for a while, as she scanned the ranks. Those who held her gaze were immediately set upon by Strongbow and Krieg-Windsor, dragged screaming outside and thrown onto the sharp black soil. Wanting to remain in the program, Darius kept his eyes pinned at the wall. Three already gone from their little company, and it was only the first day.

"Looking at me in the eyes, as an  **equal**  would-" Chief di Castellamonte spat. "As you can see, is a cardinal sin. One of many you may perform- and pay for with your blood. Remember candidates that disrespect given will be disrespect returned, and I must tell you that Assistant Instructor Strongbow excels at punitive measures. I care not for your Houses," She continued. "I care not for eventual retribution at the wave of a quill. I am your Chief Instructor, and I am  **law**. You have read your papers; you have signed your names- you know that you are all utterly  _mine_."

What she would say next would stay with Darius for the rest of his life. "I will not deny that I am from a noble House, but I have  **earned**  my right to wear my name. Most of you have not yet been sorely tested. Most of you ride on the bones of your ancestors, on the ghostly whispers of their strengths and their achievements. You will not use their names here."

Most of the people she had alluded to kept their eyes front, but there were a few who glared back at her, mouths twisting in rage at the affront to their family's prestige. Yet again, the two men darted in, hitting offenders with the backs of their gauntleted hands and sending blood on the floor.

There was a smug note in her voice as she stared at the groaning forms on the floor. "Always remember, candidates, that within the walls of Boram's Point, you are all equally worthless until you prove yourselves to your fellow candidates, to your senior instructors, to your Commander, and to  _me_."

Darius felt elated beyond belief. All of them, considered as  _equal_ \- untainted by House, by affiliation, by origin. He didn't mind that she had just called him worthless- compared to her, he probably was nothing but another name on her ledger, a bunch of letters to be crossed out as soon as he failed their tests. To say that they would be equal, that no influence would be exercised from the outside world- it was music to a hunted man's ears. He must've smiled then, because Strongbow had suddenly appeared by his side, daring him to act in any way that would displease their  _god_. Quickly, Darius stifled the expression, and returned to watching the wall. Seemingly satisfied, Assistant Instructor Strongbow retreated.

"Candidates, I have told you about disrespect. I have told you about arrogance. I will tell you now about cowardice." Her rough voice seemed to bounce off the walls. "What is cowardice?" She stopped in the middle of the longhouse, her hands clasped behind her back as Commander de Montfort had done only minutes earlier. "Cowardice is indecision. Cowardice is the inability to act. Cowardice is to turn your head away, to hide, to run. To give in to cowardice is to  **insult**  me, and I will drive my  **knife**  into your heart the moment you do."

"How do you succeed then, in a place such as this?" She seemed to read their minds as a master puppeteer would see the strings of his dolls. "Where you are punished for looking back at me, where you are subjected to physical pain at the very first instance?"

"If you are strong," She held out her gauntleted hand and closed it into a fist. The runes on the black metal blazed to life. "If you are driven, if you are obedient, you will  **pass**. You will  **survive** \- but what point is there to surviving? What point is there to merely  _pass_? In a place such as this, there is always the longer route, the most rewarding path- and that will only open to you if you give me your  **soul**."

The atmosphere of the longhouse was like a meadow bracing for an incoming thunderstorm. Heavy and absolutely frightening as she continued her speech. "If you give me everything you  **are** , I will give you glory. I will take you and mold you to be the finest warrior on the face of this pathetic earth- but only if everything you do, you will do for  **me** , for your Commander and for Noxus itself."

She let her words soak in their minds. All they had to do, then, was to give everything they had to her.

It was a price Darius would pay, gladly.

"Shall we start today?" She asked them all.

"Yes." He found himself answering. As he filed out with the rest of the recruits, he discovered that Lazare de Richelieu had been one of the people who had stared at Chief di Castellamonte.

Lazare had looked upon the face of a god, and for his transgression, he, and his things, were nowhere to be seen.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  There is just so much badassery going on here, I don't even. What I really like about this though is that even though it's conversation-heavy, it still somehow manages to drive the point home: Noxus is a nation of warriors, and as a nation of warriors, they would not accept failure or cowardice in any shape or form.


	9. The Persistence of Change

 

_How gray and hard the brown feet of the wretched of the earth._

_How confidently the crippled from birth_

_push themselves through the streets, deep in their lives._

_How seamed with lines of fate the hands_

_of women who sit at streetcorners_

_offering seeds and flowers._

_How lively their conversation together._

_How much of death they know._

_I am tired of 'the fine art of unhappiness.'_

**The Wealth of the Destitute (Denise Levertov)**

* * *

**SIX MONTHS LATER...**

It had been a full six months since Darius had entered the walls of Boram's Point, and it had been everything he had expected. From Monday to Saturday, the schedule was written in stone: morning training took place even before breakfast, composed of a myriad of exercises: at one point the regimen had been lifting entire tree trunks and jogging with it on their shoulders through valleys and deceptively shallow rivers. Breakfast was whatever was available in the mess at the time, and for such an expensive school, the food was still classically military: something that looked like meat mixed in brownish-orange thick sauce, or a rubbery substance that didn't look at all different from a block of fish food covered with yellow strips of what he had been told was 'cheese'.

Whatever it was, he learned to eat it, and he learned to keep it down through the afternoon weapons training. The lessons that Sion had seen fit to give him with regards to the bearded axe helped somewhat, but he still struggled when it came to combat practice. Everyone else seemed to know more than he did, and he was sent to the infirmary to be patched up more times than anyone else in his company.

Lessons took place on Sundays, inside the classrooms and in chairs that seemed to be older than he was. He had difficulty understanding everything that was being said at first, because he had not been to school as the more-well off candidates had. Reading became something of a chore that gave him a headache whenever the letters were too small; writing had made his hand and wrist ache. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't fully understand whatever it was his instructors had talked about, but he did his best even if everyone else in his company was already three topics ahead.

In the one hour that was given to him for personal time in the evenings after the instructors had beaten on every muscle and every bone, he spent it in the library learning to read and write, or in the Wolf's Pit figuring out how to fight properly. There never seemed to be enough time for anything; the instructors kept them on a hurried pace at all times, screaming abuse in their ears and cuffing candidates with the backs of their gauntleted hands whenever they found something unpleasant. Lagging in coursework and in the Pit, Darius wasn't exempted from their blows either- the particularly favorite insult that Chief di Castellamonte used was that he was a very tall and a very wide stack of excrement that didn't deserve to be walking around.

Thankfully, at the third month of their first year, theory gave way to application and Darius started to shine. He understood military tactics better than his peers, primarily because he could place himself in the shoes of their imaginary battalions, could account for seemingly abstract concepts like weather, exhaustion, hunger and the toll that a steep slope took on a man's back. What he knew was hard work, not politics, not history- he knew exactly how it felt to work without sleep, to perform ably without food, and already he was beginning to develop his brand of tactics, favoring one decisive strike over a long and tiring campaign.

His coursework was still not quite up to par, but he had learned how to talk properly by then, and his mistakes were not quite as apparent. He discovered that nobles had a specific manner of saying things, and that one did not just walk up to others and tell them how much of a ' _fuckhead'_  they were. No, there was a specific way for everything and everyone, and even though Darius felt a little dishonest with himself, he acquired their mannerisms easier than he learned how to spell 'tactical reconnaissance'.

On the first day, three candidates had already been cycled out of their little company- to where, he had no idea. Six months later, it seemed as if only he, Keiran Darkwill and Seamus were constants inside Dominance company- everyone else had been cycled out at one point in time, and then replaced. He didn't know where the new people had come from; they had simply appeared after the unlucky person had been thrown out- sometimes quite literally, as Assistant Instructor Strongbow had a tendency to break windows whenever he sent a candidate flying off into the dirt.

If he had been the prying sort, Darius would have asked them where they had come from- but he was not a gossiping fishwife and he had no intention of ever being called one, so he had kept his silence and had treated every single new candidate as if they had always been there. It was easier to not think of where they had come from. In the way that military life forces one to restrict one's view of the outside world, their company seemed to live in its own little bubble.

Sometimes, they had come across other training companies on the way to the mess hall for their meals, but for the most part the instructors had kept them in their units, preventing them from interacting with the other standards. It was with surprise then, after Senior Instructor Krieg-Windsor had smashed a candidate's nose into a pulp, that Darius finally saw Lazare de Richelieu again.

He couldn't resist then, because Lazare had been removed on day one. That evening instead of reviewing a large sheaf of combat logs as he had planned to, he tapped on the underside of Lazare's bunker and was rewarded when the man leaned over and stared at him upside-down.

"What?"

"What happened to you?" Darius asked him.

Lazare cast a glance at the ever watchful Assistant Instructor Strongbow standing duty by the door of the longhouse and then shook his head, retreating back to his bunk and leaving Darius utterly consumed by his curiosity.

The next morning- it was a Sunday- proceeded as always. It was the height of summer and hardly anyone wanted to go to the field- even Instructor Strongbow looked as if he was going to kill someone when he was outdoors. The great paneled windows of their lecture hall were wide open, and Chief di Castellamonte was running over the considerations involved in an attack as she on the raised wooden platform in front of them. She was dressed in her high-collared black uniform as always- how she managed to not sweat was beyond him- and was using a riding crop to beat their knuckles raw or to give someone a bloody cheek in between tapping the board and grimacing at their answers.

"The Megling commandos of Bandle City," She gave the chalkboard behind her a solid thwack. "and certain special forces units from Piltover utilize long-range rifles in order to do their dirty work. Their technology enables them to create rifles that fire faster and farther than our bowmen. We are, of course, in the process of eliminating that weakness by augmenting Zaunite technology into our armies but even with advanced weaponry, without tactics you will be nothing."

She drew a diagram on the board-Darius recognized it immediately as a battalion movement to contact diagram. It was easy to see where the Noxian troops were- they were the little squares appropriately given infantry markings. There was a square on some mountainous terrain that she was currently tapping on. "Assume that this is a Yordle gunner regiment. What considerations are there for this assault?"

"Casualties, Chief Instructor." Darius answered her.

"Of course there are going to be casualties." Came her acidic retort. "The question is, candidate, how can you reduce these inevitable casualties? How many men will still be able to fight following the initial volley?"

The answer for the first question was right in his handbook, but it was the second question that made him furrow his brow in confusion as he checked the diagram again. She hadn't put any troop numbers- how could he give her an estimate?

"Chief Instructor," He began hesitantly. "There are no troop numbers."

She made a derisive snort. "And your point is, candidate?"

Darius would have stared at her as if she was insane, but then again she was their god and he was not allowed to show her disrespect unless he wanted to suffer horribly. "Chief Instructor," He tried again, slowly and as politely as he could manage. "How may this candidate estimate casualties without knowing how many troops this candidate has on the field?"

She got off the platform, and Darius felt fear stirring in his gut as she walked towards him. Her booted heels took her next to his desk, and his mind was going insane with fear and uncertainty. Should he look at her? Should he answer the first question instead? What was he supposed to do?

"Believe it or not, candidate, that question is asked even by the best commanders." She gave him a light touch with the riding crop, and he suppressed the urge to flinch as his knuckles screamed at him.

She spared him the effort and pushed his head up herself using the tip of the crop. "Assume that I am not here, that you are in the field of battle right at this moment. You had been told that there would be reinforcements, but the fog of war has settled and you are not entirely certain of your numbers anymore. How many casualties will you incur if you decide to assault the Megling gunners?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lazare de Richelieu eyeing him with something like expectation. Seamus was looking at him with a sort of 'better-you-than-me' sympathy in his eyes. Oddly enough, everyone else in the room- and they had been the newer ones who had been cycled in recently- were also staring at him as if they were expecting something to happen.

Her question was confusing enough that he wasn't quite certain what he was supposed to say anymore. First he had been asked how to reduce casualties on the field, and now he was supposed to give an educated guess on how many people he was inevitably going to lose to some imaginary assault. With the seconds ticking away, he panicked and tried to answer the first question instead.

"Chief Instructor," He tried to make his voice stronger than his roiling gut. "When under fire from ranged weaponry, casualties increase in direct proportion to the amount of time soldiers spend exposed, and multiplied by the intensity of the enemy fire. To reduce casualties effectively, commanders must reduce the amount of time spent under fire and weaken the intensity of the fire."

"Straight from the handbook," She said with an amused look on her face. "Do you memorize it like the Measured Tread, candidate?"

"Chief Instructor?" Darius asked her uncertainly. He honestly didn't know what that was.

"The Measured Tread is the little propaganda booklet that every single Demacian is issued during their service." She reached into her coat and withdrew a bloodstained little book, about the size of a pamphlet and about as thick as one of his manuals. "They memorize it, cover-to-cover, filling their heads with lies and disgusting altruism. It also makes for an excellent trophy."

She practically threw it onto his desk with a sound so loud that everyone except the instructors themselves flinched, and then used the riding crop to direct his gaze down at the Measured Tread. It had a couple of loose pages and looked so old that the blood was practically staining it brown.

"So did you memorize our handbook, candidate?" She practically spat at him.

He couldn't lie to her. "Yes, Chief Instructor." He said somewhat shamefully. Memorizing their books had been the only way for him to catch up at one point. In the typical way of students that wanted to do their hardest but could not for various reasons, he did understand some of what he had put in his head but most of what he had read was still a giant question inside his head that had to be explained.

"And do you believe every single word in it?" Her words puzzled him.  _Believe_? Since when did believing in anything happen in Noxus? He knew the value of the strategies in his handbook- that was why he was careful to memorize the different diagrams, that was why he could recognize an ambush from a raid.

"The words within the handbook are established military tactics, Chief Instructor." He replied carefully, not wanting to be caught out more than he already was. "This candidate feels that…  _believing_  in the text is a useless endeavor."

"Oh, do you?" Her voice was almost motherly, if it wasn't for the fact he could see that she had that gleam in her eye that screamed at him to run away now. "Let me make my accusation clearer, candidate: I'm asking you if you believe in the handbook like some weakling Demacian believes in the Measured Tread."

 _It was a trap_ , he decided,  _but I'm not going to admit to anything._

"The Measured Tread is a book of propaganda that has no bearing at all during combat, Chief Instructor. This candidate believes in the tactics espoused inside the handbook and not in useless values like justice or mercy."

She drew back her fist- thankfully she didn't have her gauntlet on- and then demolished his nose. He barely had time to register the pain before hands pulled him from his chair, curling underneath his arms and keeping him prisoner. As the blood blossomed all over his shirt and pain filled his senses enough that he was practically motionless from the sensory overload, he could dimly see that he was being forcibly dragged away from the lecture hall.

Dripping blood, he stared blearily at the ceiling and then watched the world tumble around him as pain began to wrack the rest of his body- whoever was holding onto him had thrown him out, and coming from the lecture hall it was a long way down ten stone steps. The slope wasn't bad enough that he broke anything on the way out, but then again he wasn't going to get up anytime soon either. He managed to sit up after an hour spent clamping his shirt over his broken nose, but that was the only thing he could do before a black bag fell over his head and then he felt a rope tie constrict around his neck.

 _Oh, I'm going to be hanged._  He thought with the nonchalance of someone who had given himself up to whatever fate wanted to do with him, and then he suppressed the urge to laugh at the irony of everything- his parents had tried to stop him from being guillotined, but apparently a hanging would do, even if it was delayed.

But the rope never tightened enough to kill him, or even to knock him out. Instead, it served more as a way to keep the bag on his head as he was pulled to his feet and then pushed into walking. He didn't know how far he went. He only knew that he was outside at one point, and then he was pushed into something- a bed?

The bag was taken off his head, and then he found himself looking up at a stern-faced hospitalman he didn't recognize in a room that was too bright and too white to be in Noxus. As his eyes adjusted to the amount of light in the room, he could see that he was in the infirmary again, and that the walls were as grey as they always had been.

"Am I dead?" Darius felt he had to ask.

The other man erupted into a guffaw as he considered Darius' broken nose and the growing angry bruises on his skin. "Aren't you a real piece of work? No, but gods above, did that batty old woman give you a beating. I keep telling them to take it easy."

The insult to his god thrown on the table, Darius wondered what would happen if he tried to defend her from the hospitalman. Was he even expected to defend her? Unsure, and still filled with so much pain that all he wanted to do was sleep, he merely stared at the other man in utter bemusement.

"Am I going to be cut from the program then?" He asked instead, choosing to ignore the man's jab at Chief di Castellamonte.

"No, you're not going to be cut from the program. This is part of the program." Was the man's exasperated comment as he busied himself with retrieving supplies from a nearby cabinet.

Darius couldn't help but stare at him in confusion again-  _part_  of the program?

"Welcome to Boram's Point." The hospitalman replied sardonically to his questioning stare as he dabbed away at Darius' nose with a cloth. "Where we beat the life out of you and then-"

"Don't tell him anything," Strongbow's voice came from the right. Shying away from the hospitalman's cloth-wielding hands, Darius turned his head and watched as the Assistant Instructor placed a footlocker down on the floor- his footlocker?

 _They work fast,_  he thought blearily.

"Good morning, Assistant Instructor." The greeting automatically came from Darius' mouth- even if Strongbow probably was the one to throw him out; he still knew that the man had to be addressed politely. He didn't want to make his grave any deeper.

"If you don't tell them anything, you get idiots like this thinking that they're already dead when it's their turn to be cycled." The hospitalman replied wryly as he cocked his head at Darius' direction.

Strongbow looked like he was suppressing the urge to laugh himself.

"A bit dramatic, aren't you, candidate?" Was Strongbow's reply.

"No sir." Darius replied immediately.

"One mark of disobedience merits one cycle spent in punishment." Strongbow said to him as he gestured to his footlocker. "Immediately after you are discharged from this medical wing, you are henceforth reassigned to Adamant Company, under the 39th Training Standard."

He was being reassigned? There were  _other_  standards? He didn't quite know what to say, and even if he did want to talk, the hospitalman was still busy with his nose. Instead he merely gave the instructor a nod and then tried not to think about how he was the person being cycled out this time.

"It's only you and Seamus left. We managed Keiran yesterday." Strongbow saw fit to tell him. "You're a hard one to catch, candidate."

Yesterday- he remembered that Keiran had said one wrong word during cadence as they had marched across the barren plains. By the time Krieg-Windsor had stopped pummeling him, Keiran had been holding onto his shattered cheekbone and was in the process of grimly spitting out one bloody tooth. He had been cycled out after that field exercise, and the new man who replaced him still had a bandage over a cut on his forehead.

As it was, Darius took Strongbow's compliment like anyone who had just been thrown out of a lecture hall and then praised for being so hard to throw out in the first place would- he gave a somewhat goofy bloody smile that made him look more frightening rather than grateful as the blood flowed liberally down his face. "Thank you, sir."

"You won't be thanking me later." Strongbow replied frankly, with the look of someone who was used to having people screaming in his face that he had lied to them. "You will have medical rest for one day before I formally take you to the 39th's billet, candidate. Use it well."

"May this candidate spend that day practicing in the Pit, sir?" He asked the hospitalman almost childishly. The man stared at him as if he had just asked to consume his first born child.

"You just got thrashed." The hospitalman said slowly and skeptically. "And you want to go to the Pit to  _fight_?"

"To practice, sir." Darius corrected him.

The hospitalman threw a glance at Strongbow as if he had wanted to say that Darius was out of his mind. For his part, the archer took one look at Darius, at the way the candidate was shifting in his bed and staring out the window wistfully, and then shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, can he?" Strongbow tilted his head at the medic.

"You just threw him down some stairs and had that insane spinster smash his nose-" The hospitalman replied acidly. "And now you're asking  _me_  if he can fight? Why don't you just send him off to the Maw and let him  **die**? I wouldn't have to waste supplies on him."

Strongbow gave him a veiled smile.

The hospitalman made a frustrated noise and stared at the ceiling in askance. "What is the point of patching him up then?"

"To annoy you." Strongbow retorted.

"Very  _funny_ , Strongbow." The hospitalman snapped back. "I'm laughing so hard I'm going to spit my lungs in your face."

Strongbow clapped Darius on the shoulder, which hurt because he had landed on that side badly, but the show of support felt good. "The candidate knows his limits and he wants to break them, don't you, candidate?"

"Yes sir." Darius replied like a wind-up doll.

The hospitalman shook his head and growled under his breath as he turned to treating Darius' nose again. " _Whatever_ , it's not like I'm the one that's going to die. I'll sign his clearance, you sadomasochist bastards, and then I'll see you in hell."

"Thank you, sir." Darius repeated, even as he was wondering how in nine hells was the man managing to get away with such disrespect. He probably had some sort of immunity because he was a hospitalman and was part of the staff.

Darius was still aching all over, but Strongbow had effectively just given him one day to himself- and he planned on taking advantage of it. As soon as the hospitalman had signed his clearance, he was accompanied by Strongbow outside. His heading was a newer looking but no less austere longhouse on the other side of the grounds to leave his things in before he was released.

As Darius hauled his own footlocker under the fierce heat of the sun, the Assistant Instructor told him what awaited him.

"As our  _esteemed_  hospitalman informed you, moving candidates such as yourself through the companies is a part of the program- it's a lesson on how to adapt in a new unit." The archer batted away a gnat that was annoying him. "And it helps to keep the companies varied- we can't have too many nobles in a single place. They'd kill each other in their sleep."

Panting like a dog in the heat, Darius gave a nod as he moved the large crate's center mass from one arm to the other. "May this candidate inquire why it must be Adamant Company?"

"You may. Adamant Company was a problem company. We had to separate two of the unholy terrors because one of them tried to kill the other with a knife." Strongbow replied.

"But it is acceptable for them to die on the grounds, sir." Darius suggested to him as he wiped sweat off his brow and adjusted his grip on his things. "It was in the recruitment papers."

Strongbow chuckled. "During training, it is  _perfectly_  acceptable. In fact, I'd rather have an  _unfortunate_  accident. I wouldn't be wasting so much time and effort in preventing them from having paltry squabbles."

 _If you'd rather have an accident, then why would you cycle me into their unit?_  Darius mentally asked him. As it was, he merely gave the instructor a quizzical look, and Strongbow practically rolled his eyes as if he was talking about something even a child would know. A child born into nobility probably would have, but not a child born in poverty.

"You must remember, candidate, that these unpleasant children are usually the direct heirs of House heads." Strongbow stated with a patient look on his face. "If one of them decides to kill another candidate, and if that candidate  _also_  happens to be an heir or someone very dear to an influential person, the feud will spread to their Houses and then Noxus will have a very large problem in its hands. To prevent a slow fall of the city-state, you're going to replace the troublemaker, and then it will be Chief di Castellamonte's solemn duty- for the lack of a better word- to beat the arrogance out of him. It's as simple as that."

 _Oh, politics again,_  Darius thought disgustedly as he walked on, grey dust kicked up from his booted feet.  _I hate politics._

"I keep forgetting that you don't have the blood in you." Strongbow mused out loud after they had walked for some time. "You've improved your accent and your grammar, it's really quite amazing."

"Thank you, sir." Darius repeated. The compliment had been a backhanded one, but he still felt good about it.

"Their petty rivalries won't be a bother for you." The instructor gave him a sideways glance. "I know you've been sponsored by the House of Swain. They're all from the lesser Houses and they know better than to irk Thorvald's favorite."

"Is it really that important, sir? The House of Swain?" Darius asked him. For all the prominence that the House of Swain had, any of his attempts at finding out exactly what the House did to deserve the honor of being named had failed miserably.

"What  _hole_  did you crawl out of?" The nobleman asked him with an incredulous look on his face before it occurred to him that yes, Darius did indeed crawl out of a hole- out of Sublevel 12 to be more precise. "Ah- damn it all. What the House of Swain stands for is nothing you should worry your peasant head about."

"Sir." Darius responded purely because he didn't know what else he could say. "This candidate would be under another Chief Instructor?"

"Indeed. Your new Chief Instructor will be Alexander, of the House of Croix. The Senior Instructor is Iohann, of the House of Clausen, and the Assistant Instructor is Nikett, of the House of Mohren." The House name made the young man stop in his tracks. Puzzled, Strongbow stared at him in askance.

"Is there a problem, candidate?" Strongbow tilted his head.

"This candidate must inform the Assistant Instructor that this candidate has a feud with the House of Croix, sir." There wasn't any point in hiding it- if he did, then who knew what Alexander de Croix would be able to do with him.

His instructor looked at him skeptically. "A commoner like you? What did you do? Did you climb into his house and steal a vase?"

"This candidate killed his younger brother, sir." Darius gritted out.

Strongbow frowned at him when he remembered which brother it was. "Adrian." He said simply, and Darius gave him a nod.

"Ah, damn." The instructor muttered under his breath as he stopped and crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowed in thought. "Well, that complicates matters. We were hoping that you were just some irrelevant chaff that Thorvald saw some promise in- so you're  _that_  Darius."

There were many problems with having no House name to call one's own, and the worst of them was that names were simply not as unique as one would think- unless one was called Heimerdinger, which is a very unique name in itself. Unfortunately, 'Darius' was a very common name in Noxus, and while his deeds had made him notorious amongst the Noxian nobility even as a young man, not many people actually knew what he looked like.

His reputation preceding him, Darius stood in the heat cradling his footlocker as the instructor tapped at his lip and mumbled things under his breath. Watching him think, it occurred to the fourteen year old that he had never seen Strongbow look so  _human_.

Strongbow had always been an omnipotent, frightening figure with a heavy hand and extraordinary hearing to Darius. Now he was a person who seemed to have an acidic sense of humor, who knew the intricacies of inter-House politics as easy as a fish would take to water- seeing as Strongbow belonged to a House, the latter wasn't that surprising at all.

"Sir?" Darius ventured, after what seemed like the fifth time that Strongbow had shaken his head.

"Damn it all, it's always too complicated… Just remember that this arrangement is temporary." Strongbow said finally as he gave him a nudge, urging him to walk faster. "That's all I can tell you, candidate. I'll inform Chief di Castellamonte and Commander de Montfort of your predicament."

"Yes sir."

The rest of their walk proceeded in a sort of forced silence, and when he had settled his footlocker in front of his new bunk bed, Strongbow informed him that he was free to do whatever he pleased.

"You'll be fine." Strongbow had said, but the hollow reassurance seemed more for the archer's own benefit. It seemed that even the other Houses knew just how vengeful the House of Croix was. "He can't exactly kill you."

"Yes sir." Darius had tried not to think of how his life was going to become more miserable, had tried not to think of the many ways that Alexander could beat his face into the dirt and get away with it.

"Don't fall on a sword when you're in the Pit." Even Darius could tell what he was implying:  _don't give Alexander any chance to kill you and make your death look like an accident._

"This candidate uses an axe." He had replied.

"Don't fall on an axe then." Strongbow had said before he left.

As Darius had stated, he spent the rest of his free day sweating in the Wolf's Pit, mastering the bearded axe. It was different from his father's battle-axe in that one side was longer than the other, enabling him to hold it on the haft right behind the cutting edge.

In the future, he would become so skilled so as to be able to use it like a surgeon would use his scalpel, but this was a good ten years before, and he was still getting used to the weight and the feel of the weapon in his hands. Indeed, his palms and fingers showed signs of abuse- the axe handle was rough, and the large thing kept slipping up and down his palms. He would learn to wear leather gloves in order to negotiate the slip, but as of now he tolerated the burning feeling on his skin and tried not to think of the rawness of his flesh.

There were many reasons why he took the bearded axe: it was cheaper to have a bearded axe forged, and he liked the fact that he could use the longer edge to pull objects out of people's hands- eventually, this mastery would spread to pulling entire bodies. The chief reason, however, was that he felt that his father's double-headed axe was too unwieldy. He could have been the spitting image of his father if he had eaten well, but hardship and a good five years of passing most of his food to Draven had made him smaller and thinner compared to his sire. The bearded axe, then, was a way for him to salute the man's memory but at the same time give himself a way to forge his own path.

As he pushed yet another mauled practice dummy into the shade of a nearby shed, he spied movement out of the corner of his eye and blinked in surprise when he saw that it was the hospitalman. There was a large canvas bag by the man's side and he was watching him from one of the many seats on the granite grandstand. Now that they were outside, Darius could see that the man had short, cropped blonde hair and blue eyes. He was broad shouldered, with a lean and wiry build that spoke more of being quick rather than being strong. Unlike everyone else in the academy that wore high-collared black dress coats, he was wearing a simple white collared shirt, the sleeves rolled up against the heat, and a pair of black pants and black standard issue military boots.

"Good afternoon sir." Darius greeted automatically. The hospitalman frowned, pushed himself off his seat, and marched up to him, his boots crunching on the black volcanic sand.

"Sir?" Darius tried.

"You're an idiot, candidate." Was the man's acerbic reply as he held out his hands.

"Sir." Darius repeated, not wanting to insult him unless he wanted to have more trouble.

"Your hands, you moron." The hospitalman responded. "Give me your hands."

Darius held his hands out obediently, and the hospitalman made a tch'ing noise as he looked over the raw and slowly bleeding flesh.

"It's idiots like you," He said as he reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of ointment. "That make my life harder."

"This candidate doesn't quite understand what you mean, sir." Darius replied. He ignored the sting of the medicine on his palms as the hospitalman bound the treated flesh in bandages.

"Oh enough with that 'this candidate' nonsense, you sound like a schizophrenic. What I mean to say is that I hate  _this_." The hospitalman gestured around him. "All this masochistic, 'I'm strong enough to do this', sort of crap. I thought I saw enough of that in the capital but this academy is just  _full_  of it."

"Strength above all, sir." Darius echoed the adage like a schoolboy holding onto a cardinal rule.

"Oh ha-ha, channeling the insane spinster, that's  _nice_." The man muttered under his breath. "Look, candidate, the reason why people like  _me_  exist on this earth is because there are idiots like  _you_  that think they can shrug off a fall and a couple of broken bones in an hour. If you were a Rakkor, sure, I'd let you- but you're not. You're Noxian and that means I have to stop you from being an idiot."

Darius blinked and tilted his head. It was true that he had thought about that- and he did still feel like he wanted to sleep, but he had an entire day to himself and he wanted to better his fighting skills. "But I feel fine, sir."

"No you're not, you're panting like a dog and you're going to fall over from heat exhaustion if you don't hydrate." The man pulled out a flask from his bag and held it out. "And you know I'm right. You're a worker, like I am."

Gratefully, he took the flask and drank deeply. The summer heat had taken its toll on him, but he was so close to mastering a new technique with his axe that he didn't think about anything else. Now that he was drinking water, he found that his throat had become so dry that drinking something hurt him.

"I've seen a minotaur drink like that." The hospitalman said with a chuckle when Darius passed the flask back with a murmured and polite 'thank you'. "What do you think you're doing here, huh?"

"I was trying to see how I could better utilize the axe, sir." Darius admitted as he gestured to the practice dummy in the shade. The thing's straw limbs had been slashed at so many times there were only tufts left. "I felt that with enough practice, I could try and disable the opponent."

"Stop thinking like you're holding a sword then." The hospitalman replied candidly as he regarded Darius' work. "Going away at it like that- you might as well just pick up a claymore or a couple of little knives."

"Sir." Darius said respectfully. "What do you suggest?"

"If you intend on disabling your opponent, you might want to target their tendons and their arteries instead." The man replied wryly. "It'll make your life easier."

"Tendons and arteries, sir?" Darius echoed in confusion.

"Ah, right. I keep forgetting that you Noxians have a problem with education, which is sort of alright given that you're going to be an infantry commander with no brains like the rest of them- a stack of meat with an axe." The man said disgustedly. "Not like Piltover- now that's a place with medical training aplenty. Pull out a dummy, candidate, I'll teach you how the average human body works."

"You've been to Piltover, sir?" The concept of an outside world was still alien to him. He ignored the insult and did as he was told.

"I was born in Piltover." The hospitalman admitted as Darius pulled a dummy out for him to inspect. "I've been to Ionia and Bilgewater. I haven't been to Demacia since I changed my citizenship. There's something about Noxians that they don't like."

"You  _came_  to Noxus?" Darius asked him, finding the concept of someone actually trading in their citizenship to become a Noxian puzzling.

"I came to  _Zaun_. Piltover revoked my license after I killed someone." The man corrected him. "And when I treated one of your own, eventually they just pulled me in. I know you're a land of warriors, but it would be nice to  _not_  be the only intelligent life form capable of treating wounds within miles, hm?"

When the dummy was laid out on the ground, the hospitalman gestured to the various places where veins and muscles could be disabled. "Morons like you; you go straight for the chest or for the arms. It's fine if you just want to kill them by clawing them to death but if you really, really want to kill someone, you take your time with what you know, candidate."

He prodded the sides of the dummy's neck. "Carotid, jugular. Cut deep enough and they'll exsanguinate in two minutes but duck your head because it'll squirt in your eyes if you cut in. Femoral," And the man prodded at the inside of the dummy's legs. "Ligaments on the knees, that helps you walk so you can cut into that and watch them flop on the floor while they bleed out."

He pulled the dummy's torso up so Darius could see where he laid his fingers on. "Cephalic vein on the arm, easily seen, easily severed and not a lot of people wear chainmail that far- only the really rich ones do. Basilic vein here on the shoulder, if the poor fuck isn't wearing any armor; it's pretty easy to get to. One jab, maybe two. Don't waste your time making yourself feel better with a lot of tiny scratches, candidate. You get to the point and then you watch them bleed out."

They went over the specifics of how to murder someone very slowly for the rest of the afternoon. Darius had initially struggled over the concept of 'veins' and 'arteries' and the differences between them before the hospitalman called him an idiot and told him to look it up in the library. When the theory-crafting was done, the hospitalman had him pull a dummy out and then practically beat the names of the blood vessels and nerve pathways into his head until Darius was quite certain he could say the words and point out the places in his sleep. Of course, improvement did not happen overnight, but the hospitalman had given him a foundation to work with, and that was the most important part of any new lesson.

"Sir," Darius said at the end of the day as they both analyzed a practice dummy. He couldn't help but ask. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because you're a moron." The hospitalman replied immediately.

Unsure if he was supposed to take the answer as it was, Darius merely stared until the hospitalman gave a sigh.

"Look," The man said very slowly, as if he was lecturing a child. "You've got the guts to be a moron out in the sun today. And I know from hearing Strongbow's stories that you've also got a good head on your shoulders. You just need a push in the right direction and I'm giving it to you."

"You've helped me more than Assistant Instructor Strongbow has, sir." Darius admitted.

"You're still a moron." The hospitalman retorted. "Just think- what did Strongbow teach you?"

Darius shrugged. "I'm not quite sure what you mean, sir."

"Look at you addressing me as 'sir' even if I'm not part of the actual training staff." The hospitalman pointed out. "Look, candidate, I'm just here to put bandages on spoiled brats but you're giving me respect and that feels sort of nice, even if it is from a pile of shit like you. What does your crazy spinster say about respect in general?"

"Disrespect given is disrespect returned." Darius echoed Chief di Castellamonte's words.

"Right, so the opposite would be: respect given is respect returned," The hospitalman pointed out. "And besides, if you died out here from heat exhaustion, they're going to kill  _me_  for it because I let Strongbow pull my arm and signed your clearance like the moron I was. If  _you_  stay out of shit,  _I_  stay out of shit. We both get to live another day."

Darius smiled slightly and nodded. "I see."

"Well, you'd better." The hospitalman said gruffly. "You did good work today, candidate."

"Thank you, sir." It occurred to him then that he didn't know the man's name. Darius was about to open his mouth to inquire when the hospitalman extended his hand.

"Conrad." He said simply.

"No House names in Piltover, sir?" Darius couldn't resist asking as he shook the other man's hand- wincing slightly as the bandages rubbed against the raw skin. His incessant need to ask questions about the outside world would persist until adulthood- upon becoming a League champion; he would be the only Noxian curious enough to ask Sejuani about life on the tundra.

"No. There's something about Piltoveran culture about being genius enough to wipe out every other person with the name. 'Conrad' is dirt common and if I miraculously become famous, I'll just get a little tagline at the end, so fuck them." The hospitalman replied wryly. "You're due to be reassigned today, so I'd suggest you get to your new bunk before lights out."

He tried to ignore the fear stirring in his gut at the prospect of reporting in Adamant Company and forced out a good-natured smile. "Yes sir."

He didn't want to go, but he had to. He couldn't run away. It would be cowardice of the highest caliber.

As he would find out over the coming weeks, he would find that, yes, he  _should_  have run away.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  Well, his passive had to come from  _somewhere-_  and given that we've established only the privileged ones get quality education in Noxus, it has to be someone from the outside. Who better to teach him how to cripple and make other people bleed out than an actual doctor (or hospitalman, seeing as it  _is_  the military)?

We see another side of the instructors here-  _yes_ , they deal out punishments but I tried to emphasize what what they're supposed to do in the first place- which is to impart knowledge and to facilitate learning. Granted, they're also (mostly) aristocrats and they see things differently than Darius and the rest of his sponsored ilk. Instructors are human too, and we can see that Strongbow's afraid of de Croix as much as Darius is.

There's a lot of text here (7k words holy hells) but it's nice to expound on dialogue and not write a lot of third person stuff for once.


	10. One Beyond Reproach

_Day after day breaks_

_and gives him_

_back to us_

_broken._

_Soon the husk of his knowing_

_won't know even that._

**Blood Honey (Chiana Bloch)**

* * *

**THIRTY MINUTES LATER...**

To instill zealotry in their troops, Demacia utilizes the Measured Tread and a litany of other sayings that fills one's mind with a sort of relentless altruism until one is able to vomit justice and peace across all of Runeterra- in the case of Lady Luxanna Crownguard, it was rainbows.

In Noxus, there was no need for a constant application of droning chants and memorized lines. Since birth, one is constantly taught- either by the system or by one's choices- that one must adapt or be killed, and that one must be strong to achieve what one wants. These two simple lessons prove true across the entire Noxian social strata from its highest peak to the lowest tunnel. When youths are being educated in military academies across the city-state, therefore, all the instructors need to do in order to trigger the indoctrination towards the philosophy of strength was a little push in the right direction.

It is a well-known fact in Noxus that several of the noble Houses possessed deep-rooted rivalries with each other- for whatever reasons. A lost dog was the reason behind the bad blood between the House of Castellamonte and the House of Montfort for some thirty years, while the reason for the House of Westley and the House of Strongbow's professional rivalry lay in a broken bow and a bit of wounded pride. There were a myriad of other smaller families squabbling over little things like which silk dress was better at so-and-so's garden party, but the biggest players were always the oldest and supposedly most venerable Houses, and these groups played a higher stakes game.

To wit, the House of Couteau has long been at heads with the House of Duplantier due to an accident that involved a poisoned chalice and the wrong person at the wrong event at the wrong time, while the House of Montpelier has always tried to keep its head down ever since an entire generation of their family had been wiped out by the neighboring House of Croix. Behind closed doors; the House of Swain has been biting at the heels of the House of Darkwill.

It could be said that Boram Darkwill allows the rivalries to perpetuate, as conflict would breed innovation and encourage strength in all those who play  _his_  games. But of course, with a multitude of influential Houses squabbling over minor things like teacups and racehorses, how does one manage to funnel all those petty jealousies into something conductive for the state?

The solution lay within the military academies, where instructors took all that dormant hatred and used it to their advantage, molding ideal Noxian soldiers by breeding an atmosphere of competition, pitting companies populated with richer candidates against poorer ones, propagating dormant House rivalries with a quick word and a little incentive. To kill more enemies became a way to top a rival House, to earn more glory on the battlefield became a way to rise against the nobility.

Playing candidates against each other was an elaborate skill- nigh a requirement if one was to become a Chief Instructor, and Boram's Point was especially notorious due to the large number of candidates coming from the bickering Houses and from the less-fortunate Wards thanks to the sponsorship system.

Upon finding out that the other members of their training company had been sponsored or had actually  _worked_  to get inside the infamous academy, blue-bloods tended to band together quickly. After all, nothing short of a Demacian insulting their ancestors bites at the aristocracy's' dignity as much as the mere  _existence_  of the lower class does.

In order to avoid such a thing from happening, it was something of a tradition inside the Chief Instructors' circles to place upstart nobles into companies filled with nothing but sponsored candidates- throwing them to the metaphorical wolves and watching the blood and innards fly into the air. The worst punishment, after all, was one inflicted by one's own peers. However, the opposite also proved true. With the inclusion of more nobles into the academy's walls, the most promising sponsored candidates were slyly transferred into the most toxic aristocratic companies, letting the nobles themselves have a chance at turning the knife.

Unlike Chief Instructors like Suzanne di Castellamonte-  _she_  had a rather notorious record of breaking over five hundred scions of noble houses into nothing but sobbing masses on the floor- Chief Instructors like Alexander de Croix pursued the sacred duty of instructorship only to knock what he saw as a plague of rustics back into their holes- he liked to make them beg for their lives before he let his candidates have their way with their targets. Many a sponsored candidate during his tenure had been broken enough to commit suicide in the isolated woods at the edge of the grounds.

In any other place, his practices would have seen him hanged or put into prison, but this was Noxus, and to commit suicide was to admit weakness and defeat. The more candidates he sent over the edge of reason, the more fuel he had in his argument against the method of sponsoring candidates. At the time of Darius' reassignment into Adamant Company, Alexander had already sent one sponsored candidate into a coma. There had been no evidence of his involvement, of course, but suspicions ran deep even in the Cathedral itself.

All that was unknown to Darius- if he had chosen to listen to the whispers that his fellow candidates had been exchanging, he would have known better, but he had not. His aversion towards politics and intrigue would wane in time, but he was still too young, and the importance of listening had not yet been carved into his skin.

As soon as Darius had entered the longhouse, everyone in Adamant Company literally stopped what they were doing-books were left open, scrolls dumped on the floor, chainmail left soaking in oil. It felt disturbingly pleasant for the fourteen year old to see noblemen's children regarding him with a sort of fear in their eyes- no doubt the result of his being sponsored by the House of Swain. He would have basked in the attention if he had been Draven, but instead Darius stood next to his bunk and glared back at them all until he was promptly called into the Chief Instructor's office by Assistant Instructor Mohren.

"Where are we going, instructor?" He had asked. As far as he knew, the instructors did not work within the longhouses.

"The Cathedral." Assistant Instructor Mohren had replied.

He had never been inside the Cathedral before. He had always stared at it from afar, had always wondered what was inside. Now he was being led in like a bleating sheep to the slaughter, the blonde-haired Assistant Instructor Mohren staring at him with something like well-veiled sympathy in his eyes as he nudged Darius into a massive hall on their way to de Croix's lair.

Being inside the Cathedral's Grand Hall, even for just a moment, was as if he had decided to walk into a great beast's torso. The room could have held over a thousand people in comfort. The floor was made of polished marble slabs, a single streak of red carpet cutting the space into two parts. Torches- magical ones from the green color they emitted- lined the high walls. There were rows upon rows of tables and chairs with black paneling and green cushions- the training staff's mess?

The ceiling, already echoing a whale's ribcage, held a single massive black chandelier, and he stared at it in awe as he passed by, appreciating the elaborate carvings on the ebony wood- skeletons dancing in a field of dead men, a hooded Death almost lovingly holding a man's severed head in the air, chains and screaming faces, and demons of all forms taunting vulnerable men.

"It's amazing." Assistant Instructor Mohren said to him as he pushed Darius on the back of the head. "But you have to move now."

They went up a staircase so grandiose that imagining how much it took to make boggled his mind. The skeleton motif continued here as well, and the craftsmanship was such that it seemed the two elaborately carved banisters had been made from a single piece of wood. As a man who carved wood to survive, he couldn't help but be impressed.

The second floor was similarly decorated and designed- paintings of famous battles on every wall, a General's stern marble countenance seemingly around every corner, complete with a brass plaque underneath explaining what sort of battle the man or woman had done to deserve their rank. Mohren led him through several passages before he opened a door that looked to have a whole wing on its own.

'Office' was an underwhelming word for Chief de Croix's rooms- as benefiting a man of his station, he had been given four rooms all to his own, all four spaces decorated appropriately- large windows offering a view of the grounds below, colorful frescos of bygone battles on the walls, beautifully patterned marble flagstones, purple drapes and elaborately woven carpets, bookshelves that lined an entire wall, a massive desk carved with dragons and skeletons, marble busts of past rulers and a single gleaming broadsword hanging over a fireplace, the ebony mantelpiece laden with souvenirs from past deployments. Everything was so clean and neatly arranged that the place somehow managed to feel  _clinical_ , even with the supposedly personal things over the hearth.

Mohren took up his post by the door as Alexander de Croix emerged from his library, like a spider wanting to find out what it had ensnared in its web. Upon seeing Darius, a mad light flickered in his green eyes before it was stifled by coldness that seemed to descend on him.

Unlike his father, and by extension the rest of his family, the weatherworn Alexander de Croix was black-haired and green-eyed. He was undoubtedly handsome, with a strong jaw and his family's high cheekbones. If his father had been extremely well-dressed when he had met with Darius' family that fateful day, Alexander was absolutely impeccable- his hair was cut short and to standard, his blood-red cravat was well-tied, his black instructor's coat was spotless and well-pressed and his shoes were shinier than the weapons inside the Pit.

Even if he was absolutely flawless with regards to appearance and personal hygiene, he still somehow managed to give off a certain air of  _wrongness_. He did not stare into space, nor did he talk to himself in the way of mental patients inside sanitariums, no. He talked and acted as if he was not entirely present in his own mind. If any one of his victims had ever survived his torture sessions, they would describe his illness as being more  _visceral_  than absurd.

"Assistant Instructor," The aristocrat said in calm, cultured tones. "You may go."

Without hesitation, although he probably did have reservations about leaving a candidate in the man's care, Mohren clapped his closed fist over his beating heart, bowed his head and then left the two of them alone.

"Sit." Alexander gestured to a chair in front of the great desk, one hand behind his back.

Darius didn't move from where Mohren had left him next to the door. Was he afraid? Certainly. Was he refusing an instructor's request  _because_  he was afraid? Of course not. He did not want to go through false pleasantries. Alexander de Croix was an enemy, and he was not willing to play the man's game.

Alexander de Croix shifted his hand from his back, and Darius briefly saw the elaborate gauntlet with crawling, strange runes before he felt an immense pressure settle over his throat and he was lifted a good five inches off the ground. Choking, clawing at an assailant he could not see, the fourteen year old struggled and thrashed.

"Sit," Alexander de Croix stated as he twitched his fingers like a master puppeteer. Darius was sent careening into the chair with a loud slam and a rain of splinters. " _Please_."

Like a five year old uncertain of how people were supposed to sit, Darius was flapped about against his will as the same invisible force that choked him pulled at his limbs and pushed at his chest. Breathing heavily, his nose bleeding and sending droplets flying everywhere, he tried his hardest to fight but it was like going against an avalanche with a shovel. Surrender was inevitable.

Alexander lowered his hand, pulling at an invisible line that only he seemed to be able to see. It seemed that even gravity itself was fighting him- Darius found he could not lift his limbs. Still, he was glaring furiously at the man.

"Are you glad to see me?" Alexander asked him with a boyish look on his face. Invisible claws pushed Darius' head up and down, even as the youth growled angrily at him. "'Oh yes, I am, thank you sir'." The de Croix answered for him in a mocking, singsong voice more appropriate for a little boy.

"Motherfucker." The youth spat at him.

"Oh, it is capable of speech," The de Croix gave a theatrical gasp as his eyes twinkled merrily. "How amusing indeed! It is also amazing how you manage to even speak the same language. Hello, little boy, you've grown, I see."

"Let me go, you bitch." Regardless if he was insulting an instructor, Darius practically was snarling at him.

"Oh, let's not get to that part yet, I want to talk for a while longer." The green-eyed man tilted his head and flashed him a savage smile. "This," And he wiggled his gauntleted fingers. "Is so we can have a nice chat. I do not wish to be punched while I am trying to be a polite gentleman, you see."

"Coward." Darius howled. "You're a fucking coward! Let me go!"

"Strength above all, isn't that what your dear Chief says?" Alexander tapped at his lip; each and every movement seemed to make Darius' invisible bindings tighter. With mounting horror he could see the outline of the magic on his skin. "Why, I am simply playing to my strengths. Will you play by my rules or will you give me the most satisfying pleasure to snap your neck right now?"

Unable to even object, Darius settled on glaring at him instead. Slowly, the invisible force lessened its hold, and although he still could not move, at least it was not painful.

"And it learns!" The nobleman exclaimed as he clapped his hands together. "Oh, how wonderful. It has a  _brain_."

"What do you want, de Croix?" Darius gritted out.

"The most marvelous thing imaginable- the  _perfect_  vengeance." Alexander watched Darius with a deceptively casual tone of voice. "I planned it as meticulously as possible, you see- I will  _take_  everything you  **are** , and I will  _destroy_  what you will  **become**. I will  **bleed**  you, and then when you are empty and grey, I will give you a knife, or perhaps a length of rope and you will tell yourself that it is best if you simply…  _died_."

"I'm not going to kill myself." Darius struggled to keep his voice even- it came out sounding hoarse and weak thanks to the beating he had gotten.

"Oh, we don't know that yet." Alexander gave a chuckle and a dismissive wave. "There's still plenty of time before you're transferred out of my care. Plenty of time indeed."

"Why can't you just let it go?" The candidate asked him. Having been hounded for a year, he could not understand why Maynard would never stop. "Your father took the lives of my parents, deprived me of my home and took away my livelihoods." Darius couldn't help but snarl at him. " _That_  is not enough?"

"A true vengeance," Maynard's second son raised a finger as if he was teaching Darius how to spell, his voice dripping with false kindness. "Is definitive, and complete. To truly avenge my brother's memory, the payment for his life must be like that of my House against the House of Montpelier- absolute annihilation. Once you are dead and your weakling brother too- only then will my father say that it is  _enough_."

Any small hope he had of being able to escape vanished. He had to destroy them, before they destroyed him and Draven. "Your entire family is mad-" Darius began, but he was quickly interrupted.

"If I killed your younger brother, you would be as well." The de Croix tilted his head, staring at him with sympathy that seemed more wooden and cold than the desk or the marbled floor.

Darius glowered at him sullenly. It had only occurred to him then. Yes, he would have felt the same way if Draven had died. He would have sought the same methods. Being the target of the abuse and yet understanding his enemy's reasons only made his determination to foil their plans stronger- he would not break. He would not give them the  _satisfaction_.

"Did you really think you could escape? From retribution? From my  _family_? Oh, what I would give to be as naïve, as much of a dotard as you. You, who perceive the world as so simple a thing," And the de Croix gestured here and there. "That  _this_  is black,  _that_  is white. I am  _evil_ , and you are  _good_. I would pity you, if I could."

"Don't insult  _me_  with your so-called pity." Darius retorted acidly.

"And do not insult me with your barbarity and petty threats," The aristocrat returned with a careless shrug of his shoulders. "At this point, I hazard to guess that we have insulted each other enough. Perhaps we should move on- I would prefer your capitulation."

"No." Darius informed him flatly.

"Well, as they say-" And Alexander reached out and gently closed his fist. "I did try."

The pressure came down upon him again, and Darius resisted the urge to scream as the malevolent force closed around him. Just when he reached the precipice of consciousness, when he was quite certain that he would pass out from the pain- the hold stopped and he flopped to the ground like a dying fish.

"This," The aristocrat said with a gaming tone in his voice. "Is too simple, isn't it?"

Barely conscious on the floor, Darius felt the man's boot push him about until he was lying down on the ground, chest heaving up and down in weary breaths. His eyes were narrowed to slits in his exhaustion and pain.

"It is a wonder what a little magic can do." The aristocrat said to him as he bent down and gave Darius a sharp cuff on the face. "In a land full of savages such as yourself- all of you struggle like a little worm in my hands and it feels so…  _empowering_."

Violently pulled back into consciousness, the teenager stared blearily up at his oppressor as the man smiled down at him in a parental fashion, cupping his chin in one hand and manipulating his jaw like a child would to a doll.

"I think I should give you a little more time. Would you like more time?" Alexander mused out loud, even if the teenager on the floor couldn't manage anything except a few disjointed words and heavy breathing. "I think you would like more time. That would suit my needs- and yours, of course. It is always a good thing to have a fighting quarry."

"Wha-" The candidate rasped out. "What are you-"

"Ssssh," Alexander said softly as he patted Darius' abused face. "You're tired, of course. You've had a whole day out in the Pit. I will send for Mohren to take you back to your bunk, hm? It is not at all sporting if I terminated you right now- I wish to talk with you a little more when you are not at all exhausted. It might be more interesting."

And then he stood- Darius could dimly hear him walking away to get Mohren.

"Alex-Alexander," Darius managed to say with a beleaguered wave.

Like any good mother, the man was at his side at the mention of his name. "Yes, little savage? What is it?"

"Hope you," Darius said. He had been thrown down a set of stairs, had his nose broken by a woman and had been, after suffering under the heat of the sun for hours on end, thrown about like a ragdoll. Quite frankly, he was beyond caring about what happened to himself as he ran the words through his mind and out his mouth. "Die in a fire."

"Oh, that  _would_  be a nice accident." Was the man's twisted response. "That's a very good idea, thank you, little savage."

He must have passed out then, because the next thing Darius remembered was waking up in his bunk, hearing the bustling of bodies around him. He opened his eyes and found that he could not move. Staring down, he saw that he was pinned to his bed by his own blanket- held down by two candidates. A third was in the process of jamming a gag in his mouth. Of course, he struggled, but he was still so tired, and yet again, he did not have access to his limbs.

Palpable fear coursed through his body, making every movement difficult and every limb cold. He could not completely hide the emotion from breaking out of his eyes as he squirmed and twisted under the blankets, kicking and flailing to no effect- the two candidates were too strong, and he was too weak. His screams were muffled by the cloth gag and trying to spit the thing out only made him sick to his stomach as the dry cloth snaked its way down his throat and filled his mouth with an unbearably bitter taste.

"Darlings," Alexander de Croix's cheerful voice filled his ears. "We have another toy. Let's give it a warm welcome- but I would prefer that you not break it."

And as his struggling reached a feverish pitch, the blows began, raining down from all directions and from the darkness of the longhouse- punches and kicks, soap bars wrapped in shirts, hastily made rope knots and balled-up chainmail shirts. There was nothing he could do but scream and struggle helplessly against an endless foe, hoping against hope that all of it would just  **stop**.

The helpless feeling overwhelmed him, and he would have cried if he could, because it that was the only thing that he could do without pain, but he had never been able to cry since his parents had volunteered themselves for the chopping block, and so his eyes simply rotated madly in their sockets, pleading and begging for the punishment to stop.

He had already suffered much that day, but the candidates around him did not care if he was close to passing out again. They continued to pummel him with cold faces and merciless hands, and still thumped away at him when he gave in to the pain and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

"That's enough, darlings." Alexander de Croix said as soon as he saw that Darius was no longer struggling. The candidates slinked back to their bunks like rats, leaving the man standing next to the unconscious candidate.

"He is rather tough, isn't he?" The Chief Instructor said to no one in particular.

"Sir?" Assistant Instructor Mohren asked at the entrance of the longhouse. The unspoken question hung in the air:  _who are you talking to?_

"Oh yes, of course." Alexander de Croix said with an over exaggerated shrug of his shoulders. "It's your turn to watch over the dears?"

"Yes sir." Mohren said slowly as he approached his commanding officer. "How was your shift, sir?"

"Mind-numbing. You're in for a rather dull night." The de Croix sniffed sadly as he walked out of the longhouse. "They've all been precious angels sleeping in their bunks."

* * *

**Author's Note:**  Quite frankly, this is the most disturbing chapter I've written so far, but it had to be done. I made myself sick just thinking about what exactly was in Dar's mouth then.

This sort of hazing was popularized with the movie 'Full Metal Jacket', and I tried my best to put myself in those sort of shoes and to depict the amount of fear, helplessness and cold panic that one would feel in that circumstance.

No, I've never been bullied like that, but I have been trapped in a cardboard box before and it's... not a good feeling.


	11. La Mia Famiglia

 

_So two nights passed: the night's dismay_

_Saddened and stunned the coming day._

_Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me_

_Distemper's worst calamity._

_The third night, when my own loud scream_

_Had waked me from the fiendish dream,_

_O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,_

_I wept as I had been a child;_

**The Pains of Sleep (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)**

* * *

**FIVE WEEKS LATER…**

The putrid smells of pigment bug, sweat and decaying matter filled his senses as he reached deep into the tree, ignoring the jagged edges of the dead bark as it raked his skin. He had been bothered by the nauseating odor before- but having lived and worked underground for most of his life had deadened his nose against the scent of squalor. He squinted through the stinging sweat as it ran past his eye, trying to feel his way through crevices too small for his large fingers. The bugs were not poisonous, but their bite was rather painful, and so it was with immense difficulty that he tried to find the elusive thing without running straight into its jaws- massive when held in comparison to the rest of its frame.

Pigment bugs never chirped or squeaked- their calls of alarm were high pitched, grating noises vaguely reminiscent of human screams. Their plump bodies, when not covered by smooth chitin, felt like velvet thanks to billions of tiny hairs. When his fingers came into contact with its back then, the thing let loose a haunting howl of fear as it twisted on itself- he could feel its pointy legs scraping against his flesh- and then it closed its massive jaws on his fingertip.

Pain erupted from the tip of his index finger and he bit on his lip, trying to ignore the stabbing pain, as he instinctively tried to pull his arm away. But his sleeve caught on something, and then suddenly he was trapped with his arm all the way inside a massive tree's hollow, with a howling, vicious thing at the opposite end chewing on his hand. Panic gripped him like a vice, penning his heart into a chest that suddenly seemed too small. Breathing, such a basic thing, became difficult. Even if his mind told him that pigment bugs only ate tree sap, he could feel the thing eating away at his skin and muscle eagerly, as if  _he_  was what it needed all along.

Screaming hoarsely, he beat at the tree trunk with his fist, erratically pulling at his arm. He could feel it tearing into his flesh still, and with a herculean effort that tore a three inch long gash in his arm, he finally wrenched his limb free. He could see it hanging off the remnants of his index finger, gnawing malevolently at his knuckle, its corpulent mass coming down in folds over his yellowed bones, large multifaceted eyes staring at him wickedly as its jaws shifted and pulled strand after strand of muscle from his hand.

Utterly horrified, he reached over and pulled it off, screaming his throat raw all the while as pain flooded his system and made his limbs shake. It did not let go easily, bringing with it a long strip of skin as it went. Vindictively, he closed his fist, thinking that it would burst in a cloud of satisfying red. But as his fingers wrapped about it, it did not explode like an overblown balloon- instead, it turned into a shrieking cloud of legs and eyes and mouths- a veritable ghastly swarm that flew into his face, forcing a billion needles into his eyes and nose, down his mouth and into his ears.

And then suddenly, Darius was not at an insect farm. He was not being eaten alive. He was kicking his blanket off, the sheets underneath him stained through with sweat. His head felt like someone had just stepped on it. His chest were heaving up and down as his lungs tried to suck in air, his heart tried to smash its way through his ribs and nausea began to take a hold of his stomach, pushing his dinner up to the tip of his throat.

Hoarse breath after hoarse breath escaped his lips, and his eyes anxiously searched through the dimness of the longhouse for demonic, man-eating insects. As his confused mind tried to negotiate the difference between dream and reality, he found himself pinned against the headrest of his bunk bed, as if clinging any more to it would make him melt into the frame.

 _I'm not there_ , he told himself as he slowly forced himself away from the headboard.  _I'm not there._

All was quiet in the longhouse. He had been screaming in his sleep but it seemed that no one had cared to get up or to tell him to shut up- everyone was too tired to do so. The candidates had spent half the day hauling one hundred pound weights on their back across five miles of inhospitable terrain with instructors dogging their heels and pelting stragglers with volcanic rocks. Before that, they had been running through drills in the Wolf's Pit, and Darius had just earned his seventh scar trying to avoid another candidate's razor-sharp flail.

Despite his fears, it seemed that training under Alexander de Croix had been no different from when he had been under Chief di Castellamonte- essentially; the two followed the same curriculum. It was when the lights were turned off in the longhouse that demons began to crawl out from under the flagstones.

His mouth filled with saliva as his meal pushed impatiently against the back of his throat. Not even bothering to pull on his sandals, he got off his bed and half-walked, half-stumbled into the bathroom. There, amongst rows and rows of communal toilets, he pulled the seat up and vomited his evening meal into the still waters.

His hand quivered as he pulled on a weight hanging on a thin chain and then blearily watched the indescribable globs of meat and rice made their inevitable journey towards the sewer. As he slumped over the bowl, he tried to make sense of what had just occurred- it was just another nightmare, the sixth one so far that involved him being trapped and then being tortured slowly- being devoured alive was a relatively new torment. Before, his dreams had involved smiling skeletons that peeled his flesh off his skin like a child would pull the wings off a fly.

Five weeks ago, Darius had tasted the second son's bitterness and hate as the man threw him about like a ragdoll. That same night, he had been pinned down and then pummeled at by his fellow candidates. What was perplexing was that when he woke up the day after, he could find no injuries. He did not even have a single bruise. He had been confused and disoriented for the rest of the day, eyeing everyone else suspiciously and falling uneasily into an exhausted sleep.

Three nights after that, Darius had been called again into de Croix's office, and yet again he had been violently tossed about and treated like a subhuman thing. Alexander did not bother with questions or other such niceties then- there was just the turn of the key on the door, and then the beating would begin in earnest. When Darius felt faint, he would be slapped back into reality or forced further into the darkness of his mind- no matter what happened, he would always wake up in his bunk, and like clockwork, his torment was constant and never-ending. Candidates would gag him and hit him, and then he would pass out again.

What ate away at Darius was that he always woke up the next day without a mark on his skin. As the subsequent beatings had taken place in the dark, he could not tell which candidate had pummeled him and so he could not directly challenge anyone. When he did snap at one point, the candidate he had accused simply stared at him as if  _he_  was the crazy one.

Three more times the thrashings happened, but it was not every night, nor was it every week. He couldn't see any pattern in the abuse nor could he discern Alexander's moods prior to one. The beatings seemed utterly  _random_ , and after the one only last night, he couldn't help but think that his nightly torments might have all been an illusion of some sort- he would not put it past someone who clearly knew magic.

But certainly reality or illusion, it was driving him  _mad_. Darius felt like a hunted thing every time the day would end, watching the other candidates suspiciously and obsessively as they did their nighttime rituals and chattered amongst themselves. When the sun set, he found that he did not want to sleep because then he might wake up again, pinned to his bed with his blanket, feeling rough cloth shoved down his throat and preventing him from screaming as the hurt began again and again. If he managed to fall asleep, he could not keep it well- the dreams would happen, and then he would be tortured there also, and he would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and feeling sick to his very bones.

"Are you well, candidate?"

He looked up and to the side- Senior Instructor Clausen was staring at him. The man was of average height and had a rugged weather-beaten face and tired black eyes. His black hair ran wild on the top of his head, as did his stubble. Darius had never seen him handle a weapon- not even in the Pit. His deceptively lanky build was the cause of many surprised looks when he beat candidates' faces into the ground using only his fists.

Despite his roiling gut and quivering frame, Darius nodded his head mutely. In retrospect, it was quite stupid to deny that he was sick because illness was one of many things that could not be left unchecked and ignored, but at this point in time he was only fourteen and he was trying his hardest to both overlook the trauma that de Croix inflicted on him and to shoulder on with his studies.

"So you  _were not_  screaming your head off earlier as you slept?" The man asked him dryly.

The fourteen year old shook his head.

"You do realize that I will not look down on you, if you choose to admit that you are ill?" The Senior Instructor tilted his head.

Darius nodded as he tried to ignore the taste of bile in his mouth, the pounding pain at the back of his head and the prickling digestive acid at the back of his nose that made his eyes water.

"And still you insist on stating that you are not?"

"Yes sir." He rasped out poorly.

The man did not seem convinced, and Darius knew it was pathetic to insist that he was not, because really, with his pallid skin and his hollowed eyes, no one would be convinced that he was  _not_  feeling worse than the vomit he had just flushed down the toilet. Still, he could not bring himself to admit that he was about as strong as a fly at the moment.

"… Report to the infirmary in the morning." Clausen said with a disappointed turn of his lip and a disdainful look in his eye.

"Yes sir." Darius would have replied grudgingly, but as it was all he could manage was a wretched acknowledgement.

"You're one of di Castellamonte's get, aren't you?"

"Yes sir, this candidate was from Dominance Company." He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and spat out a stray grain of rice that had not joined the rest.

"Then you should know that admitting illness is not a weakness, candidate." The Senior Instructor frowned at him. "She taught you better."

"Yes sir." He gritted out pathetically. She had also treated him better, was what he wanted to say, but he couldn't unload his frustrations and insane speculation on this man. Was he too proud to admit that he was being ridden to the earth? Not quite. Did he suspect that Clausen was in league with de Croix? Somewhat. He didn't know who to believe at this moment, and so he felt it was best to shut up.

"Get cleaned up and go back to bed then. Frankly speaking, you look like shit." The man with an over-the-regulation haircut and an unevenly trimmed five-o-clock shadow told him.

"Yes sir." Darius repeated, and the irony of the situation bit at him as he pulled himself up off the floor and walked to the sink to wash his face.

When Darius returned to his bunk- Clausen insisted on it- he found that no matter what he did, he could not bring himself to go back to sleep again. Even with the anxious feeling flapping about in his stomach, he closed his eyes and tried to ignore it. In the way of people who did their best to be brave at all times, he tried to convince himself that he was not afraid, that he was not traumatized- but some part of him, deep down, knew that he was.

He didn't know how long he lay in his bunk with his eyes closed and his heart and quivering frame dead set on keeping him awake, but when dawn's first light began to filter through the windows, he heard the doors of the longhouse open, Clausen and Mohren's voices reverberating off the stone walls.

In the way of Chief Instructors- today was a Sunday- Alexander de Croix was nowhere to be found. No doubt he would be waiting at the lecture hall. Where Chief di Castellamonte had the riding crop, Alexander had a more painful device called a martinet- a short whip with a multitude of leather lashes at the end, and Darius had been lashed more often than he would have under Chief di Castellamonte.

"Get up, you lazy bags of meat!" Clausen shouted as he pulled the blankets off every single bed that he could see and touch. "Fix your beds, get into your uniforms and pick up your packs- we're going jogging." Darius opened his eyes and tried to get up with the rest of the candidates, but Mohren held out a hand of warning.

"You're to report to the infirmary, candidate." The Assistant Instructor told him, eyes filled with nothing but brutal awareness.  _He_  knew why, he had been the one taking him there after all.

For a split second, Darius contemplated asking  _Mohren_  if he was going insane, but even if the older man didn't like what was happening, it was not as if he could do anything about it- Nikett could not speak against his superior, and there was the fact that the House of Croix stood higher than the House of Mohren.

Darius realized then that he was well and truly trapped- if not in an elaborate illusion, in a ruthless and malicious reality. His only option was to endure. If he managed to survive, if he held on to whatever sanity he had left- he would eventually be transferred out, cycled back into Dominance with a Chief Instructor he actually  _respected_.

"Good morning sir." Darius said stubbornly.

"I mean it, candidate." Mohren said harshly.

"Yes sir." Darius gritted out.

And so while the rest of the company was punished for being too slow to rise, forced to take a shower together in one straight line- ' _nuts to butts'_ , he had heard one of the veterans back in Dominance Company say vulgarly once, when Chief di Castellamonte had them do the same thing- Darius did not envy them.

He waited until the last candidate was out of the door before he decided to take his shower, and then halfheartedly buttoned up his clothing and combed his hair before he walked out the longhouse and made the required pilgrimage to the Infirmary. He had never before been so excluded since he had entered the gates of the Academy.

After seven months of breathing in the smells of his fellow candidates and getting splattered with their spit and sweat, it was an oddly refreshing experience to have been let loose in relative freedom. The moment he arrived in the infirmary, however, Conrad took one look at him and made a disappointed noise in his throat.

"What in nine hells happened to  _you_?" The hospitalman asked him incredulously.

"Bad dream." Darius said simply as he sat down on the examination chair- it was a good try to lie to Clausen, but Conrad actually knew what he was doing, and so there was no point in trying to lie because the man would probably cuff him on the head for being an idiot and compound his already worsening headache.

"What, did you get chased by a dog or something?" The hospitalman pulled a strange contraption onto his head- a harness with a little runestone on the center that emitted a bright light- and looked down his throat. Darius tried to ignore the pain he felt when he exposed the abused flesh to the air and closed his mouth when the man put the head harness away.

"I was being eaten alive by a pigment bug." He admitted.

The hospitalman gave an impressed whistle. "Nasty dream, that. No wonder your throat went to hell."

"What do you think I should do?" Darius asked him somewhat desperately, trying not to think of how weak he sounded.

"You're not that over the edge yet." The man tapped on his chin as he stared at Darius up and down, taking in his general condition: the ashen skin, beads of sweat on his brow from having walked under the sun, inflamed throat and bags under his eyes. "No broken bones, no bleeding wounds- a health potion, a bit of  _good_  food and sleep would set you to rights."

"That's it?"

"That's it." Conrad affirmed. "We don't even have to use a healing spell."

"In what cases is a healing spell necessary?" Even if he was tired, he couldn't help but ask.

"Oh, if you lost a tooth and broke your cheekbone like Keiran did- that warrants a healing spell. Basically anything broken that can't be fixed with ointments, serums or that sort of thing- or if you want to heal up really fast and still look handsome." The hospitalman shrugged his shoulders. "As much as possible, I don't like resorting to spells, though- too expensive and a bit too risky for my taste- we don't know the aftereffects, if any."

" _Expensive_?" He echoed.

" **Hell**  yes, because it's not going to be  _me_  that's going to do the mending. I'm not a mage. I can patch you up just fine if it's something like a cut or a gash- but anything beyond that and you're looking at a hefty fee and a temperamental healer." The hospitalman admitted with a rolling shrug of his shoulders. "Thankfully, you don't seem to have wrecked yourself beyond what I can fix."

Darius would have grumbled a bit more, but his throat hurt and he was starting to feel feverish. "So what are we going to do?"

" _You_  are going drink something and then you're going to sleep.  _I_  have to fill out a requisition for the potion and then I have to check if Solberg is awake-" The man reached over, intent on herding him to a bed- but the moment his fingertips touched his skin, Darius reached out like coiled lightning, catching the hospitalman's hand in a vise-like grip. His other hand would have collided with Conrad's jaw, but the hospitalman ducked his head just in time.

"What the  **fuck**?" Conrad practically spat at him as he yanked his hand out of Darius' grip. "What the  **hell**  is your problem?"

It took a few seconds for Darius to realize what had just happened. He had felt the man's hand on his shoulder, and he had instinctively lashed out against him. He tried to calm down now, to regulate breathing that had suddenly become erratic, to lower hands that were now shaking enough to make the limbs seem detached from the rest of his body.

"Sorry." Darius said woodenly as he tried to stop himself from shivering.

"You're just a bag of rabid bats, aren't you?" The hospitalman retorted nastily.

"Sorry." He repeated, and he watched the hospitalman shake his head in frustration.

"You have some serious problems, kid." Conrad said as he walked away. " _Serious_  problems."

 _I suppose so_ , Darius thought. "Can't fix that either?" He chuckled weakly.

"What am I? A shrink?" Conrad's voice came from around the corner. Moments later, a small red bottle sailed through the air- Darius caught it by the neck as the hospitalman continued on. "Hell no, I'm a killer that gives out bandages to rich kids for a living. I don't explore people's heads- you can pay me to do it, but I probably won't be much help at all."

He looked down at the bottle in his hands and read the label. "It says 'overdose can cause potentially fatal kidney, brain and liver damage'." He stared at the hospitalman in askance.

"It's really nice that you know how to read." Conrad resumed his seat next to him. "No, seriously, just drink it and you'll be fine."

Darius stared at him suspiciously, even if he didn't mean it at all. He had read about the organs of the human body after that day when Conrad taught him about the most vulnerable blood vessels- and so he knew that damaging the kidneys, liver and brain would result in a most horrible and slow death.

Of course in his readings he had also stumbled across diagrams of the female human body, but he had stared at the images and had felt nothing in particular- sex was still an abstract idea even if he  _was_  fourteen. He didn't have time to  _wonder_  about it, as silly as it might seem- when his parents were still alive, he had work and the defense of his family name in mind. When they died, he had to find work that would keep him out of public eye and had to learn how to take care of his stupid baby brother. Now there was his education, de Croix's 'vengeance' and the constant, disquieting thought that he was going to go home to a corpse or to a burnt down house because mail was not allowed in the Academy and he didn't know if Draven was still  _alive_. Of course his inexperience would tell very much later in his life, but that would be years into the future.

"What, did people beat you while you were asleep?" Conrad's tone of voice was obviously sarcastic, but the moment he saw Darius flinch as if he had just cuffed him on the jaw, a knowing look settled over his eye and he gave an exasperated sigh.

"That's another thing," The hospitalman began. "I don't like about  _you_  people."

"What is?" Darius tore his focus away from keeping himself still to the man across him.

"People  _did_  beat the shit out of you, didn't they?" Conrad tilted his head. "No need to hide it from me, I treat everyone and I've been here long enough that it doesn't surprise me anymore."

Hesitantly, Darius gave a nod. Yet again, he contemplated telling this person what de Croix was doing, but he couldn't bring himself to  _trust_  the hospitalman, no matter how asinine it might be for him to distrust the only person thus far who had shown a blatant interest in helping him.

"Look, don't worry your little masochistic head over it- I'm under oath to keep my mouth shut." The hospitalman shrugged. "And that's the way it is here. Ask anyone in your company- they've been beaten to hell like you have. It's so you can be ' _strong'_ -" And he waggled his fingers mockingly. "Honestly, all I see are walking psychopaths."

Darius merely stared at him- the concept of  _not_  being strong was alien to him. As good as the Noxian system was in producing great warriors and scheming tacticians and spies, it did not make for excellent scholars, artists or great minds of literature. That is to say, there were  _some_  people who  _were_  brilliant thinkers and philosophers in Noxus- it just so happened that they were either strong enough physically or well-connected politically to avoid dying or being subjected to an endless amount of abuse that culminated in a murder-suicide.

"Ah, hells. What am I doing preaching to a wall that doesn't know any better?" The former Piltoverian frowned at him. "Just remember, when you finally travel- and I mean travel for  _fun_  and not for profiteering and conquering and whatever it is that your people do- you'll see what I mean."

" _Right_." Darius said slowly and uncertainly- in the way that nonbelievers look and talk to people who claimed to have seen god.

"As for your little issue- my best advice is to just keep yourself busy and don't wrap your head around it too much." The hospitalman assured him. "Now drink your damn potion before I stuff it down your throat."

Darius ignored the sudden, murderous urge to slam the hospitalman's head violently on the floor. Instead, he took out his frustrations on pulling out the cork stopper and then, with a look of reservation on his face, drained the whole bottle. He had never been seriously ill until Adrian de Croix gave him the jagged scar, and had been unconscious or raving mad for the duration of the fever.

So he did not have the good fortune to be sick  _and_  to have medicine at the same time- what he knew of medicine, its effects and taste was what he primarily heard from other people. Instead of the bitter taste that he had often been told about, he could detect nothing but a sort of smooth and warm flow, the sweet taste probably came from something he probably was too poor to have ever eaten.

"What is that?" He asked as he handed the empty bottle to the hospitalman. Already he could feel the effects of the draught- his throat felt better, like it was being massaged, but the drawback was that he could feel himself getting sleepy and he didn't want to close his eyes just yet.

"Licorice." The man said smugly. "Good, isn't it? They make brandy in that flavor."

"Yes, it's good." Darius nodded as he licked his lips, slightly disappointed that drinking more of the concoction would give him multi-organ failure. He told himself to look for that thing- brandy, Conrad called it? "All potions are like that?"

"No, you moron. I just like to experiment with flavors." The hospitalman chuckled as he put the empty bottle on a nearby desk. "At worst, you'll get chewables that taste like boiled potatoes and at the very best you'll get stuff laced with spiced rum- those are  _always_  the best ones. Don't let someone with a cranberry-flavored health potion scam you."

Darius had absolutely no idea what a cranberry was, so he simply gave a dumb nod and tried not to look sheepish when the hospitalman read him like a book and practically gaped at him for not knowing.

"What about grapes? Papayas?" Conrad asked despairingly. "Cherries? Redcurrants? Blueberries?'

Darius gave him a blank look- he had never heard of those things before. A cursory glance at the market before he had left informed him that the only luxury foods he could afford on a semi-regular basis with his given stipend were apples and an assortment of nuts. Like any good elder brother, he had told Draven about  _that,_  but he didn't know if his younger brother was following his instructions in the first place.

"Elderberries? Peaches? Blackberries? Persimmons? Ligonberries?"

The mystified teen shook his head. If he had been wealthier, he probably would have known all of that. As it was, he had been born into poverty and he didn't see the point in wasting his hard-earned money on things that would not ward away hunger for very long.

Conrad seemed to be thinking of food that seemed more likely for someone of Darius' social class to eat on a regular basis, and he snapped his fingers when he remembered the exact name. " _Bearberries_?" The man tried.

 _That_  name was familiar- Darius gave him a nod. His father had once told him it would suffice if he was really hungry, but he shouldn't eat too much because it would make him sick. He once had, in a fit of desperation, fed bearberries to his brother, but Draven had complained about the rough flavor and vomited it back up anyway.

The hospitalman gave a heavy sigh and covered his face with both of his hands. "Of all the fruits you could have eaten, it had to be the one poisonous in large amounts. Heathens," Conrad lamented loudly, wringing his hands in frustration. "I'm surrounded by  _heathens_!"

"I've eaten apples before." Darius supplied unhappily. In all actuality, it was only  _one_  apple, because he had given the rest of the half-dozen to Draven, and the apples that had fallen into the ditch all those months ago had been given to Talon as a bribe.

"That's like… let me try and keep it simple- saying that you drink only one wine and that it's  _fine_." Conrad huffed. "But it's not,  _moron_."

"It's not?" Darius asked him bemusedly. Over the days of dealing with the man, he had learned to ignore his vulgar and insulting manner of speech. "There's more than one kind of 'wine'?"

"Why the hell am I arguing with you anyway?" Conrad snapped irritably like a fish sick and tired of a taunting lure. "Don't you have a formation to get to?"

"I was told to report to the Infirmary." Darius replied with a shrug. "I didn't receive any other order."

" _Great_ , that means I have to babysit you for the rest of the day until one of your nannies pick you up." Conrad massaged his temples. "Don't you want to sleep or something?"

Darius certainly felt sleepy, but the prospect of spending a full day in bed seemed wasteful. Besides, he still felt as if he couldn't let his guard down in bed. Like any person ignoring exhaustion, he shook his head and stifled a yawn.

"There you go again- how many hours did you sleep last night?" The hospitalman inquired.

"Enough." Darius replied laconically.

" _Very_  funny. Are you sure you don't want to get some rest?"

Darius shook his head.

Knowing full well that there was no way he could possibly change the kid's mind, the hospitalman stood up and went to a nearby drawer, pulling out a blue vial this time. He pressed it into Darius' hands and shrugged when the younger man gave him a curious look. "It'll keep you awake, you stubborn piece of shit. How's your axe-work?"

"I've gotten better. But sometimes I can't remember where to hit exactly-" Darius admitted as he pulled the stopper off and emptied the vial- this time the tart flavor made him cough as it stung his throat. "Hgrk- what was  _that_?"

"Grapefruit." The hospitalman said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Why do you even bother asking anyway? It's not like you'll be eating grapefruits or relaxing in a hammock under the sun."

Darius shrugged. "I'm… curious?"

" _Too_  curious." Conrad replied nastily as he picked up a nearby medical bag and slung it over his shoulder; it had been pre-packed for emergencies from the way it bulged in all directions. "Well, come on then. It's not like we're going to be productive just sitting indoors and talking about the nice things in life you'll probably  _never_  have. Let's go do your favorite caveman pastime and cut the shit out of training dummies so you can bleed your peers like cattle."

"When you put it  _that_  way, it doesn't sound at all complex." Darius mused as he followed the man out.

"You're a fucking moron." Was the man's caustic reply. "You're Noxian; you're not supposed to be  _complex_."

"Well," And Darius struggled to find an insult because he didn't know much about other cultures as of yet, but there was no way in hell that he was going to let Conrad off the hook. "You're Piltoverian- you're supposed to be a 'twinkle-toed weakling'."

"Nice insult- did you borrow that from the crazy spinster?"

The two of them spent the rest of the day as they had always done whenever Darius had spare time- he practiced striking the dummy in strategic places, cutting away until he was quite certain he could cripple someone in his sleep, and then Conrad would drill him on the places that he had just sliced at- questioning him on how long his quarry would last, on how much blood the target would have lost by the end of it, checking to see if Darius actually did hit his marks where he thought they were.

Darius was inspecting his handiwork as Conrad rested in the shadow of a nearby shed when they saw a figure trekking across the heated landscape. Both watched as the newcomer walked around the corner of the granite grandstand- it was Assistant Instructor Strongbow.

"Good afternoon, Assistant Instructor." Darius sprang up as soon as he realized who it was, his hand going towards his chest in the Noxian salute as he stood at attention.

"Have you been here all day?" Strongbow asked breathlessly as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

"Yeah." Conrad barked from the ground-  _he_  didn't even bother standing up.

"What the hell are  _you_  doing here?" Strongbow asked the hospitalman with a raised eyebrow.

"No one else was going to babysit him." Conrad shrugged. "Why, did someone bump their toe? Did you throw someone out a window again?"

"Oh  _shut_  up." Apparently, this was not normal behavior- Strongbow's response made Conrad sit up and stare at him bemusedly. "I need to talk to the candidate."

"I'm not here." The hospitalman grumbled loudly as he lay back down on the ground and put his arm over his face.

Strongbow took a hold of Darius' arm, and it took everything he had to stop himself from punching the man in the face. The Assistant Instructor led him off to the other side of the shed and looked around before he finally spoke.

"The House of Swain was dissolved this morning. Thorvald Swain was executed in Ivory Ward for alleged sedition." Strongbow informed him gravely, and then the man stared at him as if he expected him to react. Darius was confused, and it must have showed, because then the Assistant Instructor rolled his eyes and spoke with an extremely patient look on his face.

"Thorvald Swain was the one who sponsored your entry into this Academy," The Instructor stated. "With the House of Swain dissolved- stripped of their name and by extension, their  _nobility_ \- and Thorvald dead, your sponsorship is now held in question."

Darius found himself worrying for Draven. It would be so easy to ignore the question, to carry on without thinking about his brother's reliance on him for funding- but the fact remained that the stipend was one of the reasons why he came to this place, and if the stipend was gone, he knew he would worry for Draven until he saw the boy personally again.

It is quite easy to mistake Darius' worry as an act of love, but the fact of the matter was that, at this point in time, Darius did not  _love_  his brother. He was  _fond_  of the boy, in the same way that a man is fond of a beloved dog that keeps tearing his belongings into pieces. Eventually this dislike would turn into genuine respect and brotherly admiration, but as of now, Darius thought of Draven more as a burden or a leech rather than an actual brother.

It is natural to beg the question, then: why was Draven still under his care? Why did Darius feel obligated towards someone that gave him more grief than happiness?

It is important to note that there was one quality that marked Darius out from other Noxians: he was  _responsible_. In a society where emphasis on personal advancement was a pillar of culture, to be responsible was to either admit weakness or to saddle oneself with an unnecessary burden. Responsibility was not precisely frowned on, because it was a good quality in soldiers, but it was a bad quality to have in the very best spies and the most self-serving politicians.

Given the same situation, any other Noxian would have left Draven to die in a heartbeat- the boy was nothing more than a pathetic leech and in Noxus, those sorts of people were best left by the wayside to be picked at by crows- but Darius' parents, his mother in particular, had quite literally loved Draven to death.

The last thing they had asked of him before they were executed for  _his_  mistake was to take care of his brother, and he had promised them that he would. And so, because he was  _responsible_ , he never reneged on his promises. Even if he didn't like the kid, he would always look out for him. If the kid died, he would feel disappointed with himself instead of feeling depressed.

"Does that mean that… this candidate would not be receiving stipends in the future, sir?" Darius asked him.

"I'm not quite certain." Strongbow admitted. "Don't you have contact with your sponsor?"

"No sir." Darius said rather unhappily. Grimly, he thought of how many days would pass until Strongbow would come to him again and tell him that his brother was dead. "This candidate does not."

"Ah, damn." Strongbow made a disappointed noise. "The former House of Swain is not…  _poor_ , but whoever replaces Thorvald might think you to be a waste of funds and renege on their commitment. Your stipend depends on your sponsor, I am sorry to say."

Darius stared at him despondently. He honestly had no idea how Draven was going to take care of himself without the money he sent, even if he did lecture his younger brother for two months before he left. If Draven died, that was a failure on his part, because he didn't teach the kid well  _enough_.

A question suddenly came into mind. If the House of Swain was gone and if the one who sponsored him had died, then- "… Will this candidate be ejected from the program due to financial difficulties, sir? Or a lack of sponsorship…?" Darius ventured uncertainly. Of course, he had to think about himself also.

"No,  _you_  are paid for until the end. That was… one of the reasons why your sponsorship was  _odd_ , you see." Strongbow said hesitantly. "But what worries… me is, now that the House of Swain has been erased, the others in Adamant Company would capitalize upon it- you do not have your sponsor's protection now."

 _It's not as if they're_ _ **afraid**_ _of me,_  Darius thought spitefully.  _They beat me every other night._

As if he had read his candidate's mind, Strongbow looked at him, swallowed nervously and then asked a question that seemed to have always been in his mind since he had taken him to Adamant Company's longhouse. "Have you been beaten…?"

Darius found himself staring at the instructor with wariness. Of course, his pride dictated that he reject any admission of weakness, because he didn't want a person he respected to think he was being beaten. His pragmatism told him that he needed to say  _something_ , because that was  **not**  how instructors treated candidates- instructors lashed out only in punishment, not in personal revenge.

Eventually pragmatism won over pride in the end and he relented by acknowledging his weakness- it would win several more times in his life, with increasingly bitter results.

"…Yes sir." He said softly.

"How badly?" Strongbow asked him with a thoughtful frown on his face. He did not look to be disappointed with him- that made Darius feel  _slightly_  better about telling him.

"T-this candidate is not quite certain, sir." He admitted slowly.

"Why not?" The man's tone was clipped and terse.

How does one explain to a person in authority that one was being beaten to an inch of one's life, and then the next day there would be no evidence of the beating? He already  _felt_  like a lunatic- he didn't want Strongbow, a person he  _trusted_ , to think that he was insane.

"Out with it, candidate." Strongbow growled as two minutes passed by in silence.

Darius found himself fidgeting nervously.

"How badly?" Strongbow repeated.

"It is…  _difficult_  to say, sir." He said, and he began to speak faster after Strongbow looked to interrupt him. He tried to keep himself talking, even if he saw the man's expression turn from thoughtful to incredulous. "This candidate is… lifted into the air and tossed about by the Chief Instructor until he is unconscious, and then… and then later on, this candidate is… held down with a blanket and then hit repeatedly by other candidates until he passes out, sir… but there are no marks the day after."

"The Chief Instructor?" Strongbow repeated, staring at him in disbelief.

"Y-yes, sir." Darius tried, willing himself to stay calm, to not lash out at this man for being puzzled.

"And there are no marks?" Strongbow asked.

"None at all, sir." Darius supplied shamefully. "And… this candidate does not feel sore or exhausted the day after."

Strongbow furrowed his brow in thought. Darius watched him pace. For the candidate, every single step, every single turn and every single grumbled word were absolutely  **unbearable**. Why was this man even  _thinking_? He had told him everything he needed to know, had tried his best to be accurate but succinct. Why wasn't he doing  _something_?

"Sir?" He ventured hesitantly, when he felt he could not wait any longer.

"That… that is a heavy allegation, candidate." Strongbow admitted. "You are… accusing a Chief Instructor of interference."

Anger and bitter frustration bubbled to the surface, and he found himself wanting to snap the man's neck. He tried to keep calm, but it was still present in his words.

"You  _know_  that I have a feud with Alexander de Croix." Darius growled impatiently. At any other point in time, he would have remained respectful, but the man did not believe in him, did not even take him seriously. Thankfully, Strongbow seemed willing to forgive him his rudeness.

"I  _know_." The man replied, absolutely unfazed by his harsh tone. "But there are… certain steps for this- you cannot simply run about and accuse a Chief Instructor."

"Sir." Darius clawed at the dim hope he had of being able to make his oppressor suffer like he did every other night- holding onto the thought of righteous revenge like a buoy in a storm-swept ocean in one of the rare times in his life that he would lose sight of everything but a  _single_  thought. "Tell me how to press a charge."

"Well, you have to bring the matter to Commander de Montfort's attention," Strongbow sounded as if he was reading from a book. "A tribunal will be formed, and then you must issue a summons. If de Croix does not appear before the tribunal, then he is automatically held as guilty and will be punished accordingly. If de Croix answers, but provides proof of his innocence that Commander de Montfort judges as sufficient, then  _you_  will be held accountable for wasting the tribunal's time and  _you_  will be summarily punished."

"Then I will sir." Darius said with righteous fury. "I will bring the matter before Commander de Montfort."

" _You_? Press charges against Chief Instructor de Croix?" The man seemed to find the concept laughable.

"Yes sir." Darius felt insulted at his amusement. "Yes, I will."

"You are a commoner, candidate. What would you know of  _this_  world?" Strongbow jabbed at his origins with barely withheld disdain.

"Not enough," Darius admitted in a rare moment of furor. "But I will not stand for this any longer."

"You don't  _have_  anything." Strongbow pointed out coldly. "You said it yourself: there are no marks."

The man's last sentence seemed to trigger something in him. As the possibility of revenge ran from his fingers like sand, he felt the familiar feelings of helplessness and rage bubble to the surface. His entire frame began to shake.

"I'm not going to just… lie down and let him do as he wants!" Darius shouted at him with long-withheld frustration, the resentment absolutely palpable in his voice and in his desperate eyes. "I can't take… I can't take another night. I'm going  **mad**  just… thinking about what he plans to do, about the next time everyone is going to take a hit at me!"

"But you have to." Strongbow stated lazily, as if he was disciplining a puppy butting its head against a wall. "Because there is no evidence, there is no reliable witness, and you just lost your sponsorship. You're… stressed, I understand, but there is absolutely no way that your word will stand against de Croix's in a tribunal. You will lose, and then you will be flogged sixty times before the entire training standard. There is  **no point**  in carrying through with your accusation."

The candidate made a frustrated noise as he shook his head. "Then what's the point of me staying in Adamant Company?" He croaked weakly. "Why can't you transfer me out?"

"One misdemeanor results in one cycle of punishment." Strongbow informed him, but his voice and bearing was not without sympathy. "That is the law, candidate, and… Chief Instructor di Castellamonte will not make any exceptions. You must serve your time in another unit, as your fellow candidates have before you."

Darius held his head in his hands, quaking all the while. He felt absolutely lost, vulnerable and very disappointed in a system that he had believed in. He wanted, more than anything, to just  **throttle**  the life out of the man in front of him, but he couldn't bring himself to. Perhaps, on some level, he understood the man's words and knew that lashing out on a person that had done nothing but help was a bad idea.

"I… I will admit that… I am  _worried_  for you now that I know what is happening," Strongbow seemed to pick up on his conflicted emotions. He had sympathy aplenty in his voice, and he even seemed to  _understand_. "But I cannot interfere in the affairs of other companies, and I certainly cannot go against Chief Instructor de Croix. You must endure."

"But I can't!" Darius spoke despairingly, his hands curling into fists. "I can't. I can't  _think_ , I can't  _sleep_ , I can't- I just want it to stop. You gave me a way, but you won't let me? What kind of fucking, sadistic bitch are you to hold that in my face and just take it away?"

"The very  **best**  kind," Strongbow stated- yet again he ignored the rough words and tolerated his behavior. "Do you trust me, candidate?"

Darius stared at him from hollowed eyes. Suddenly, he felt too tired to even care, too tired to even try and speak any longer. His head hurt, he wanted to cry but he couldn't, and he just wanted to scream a bit more but his throat was starting to hurt him again.

"Do you trust me?" Strongbow repeated.

 _Do I?_  He asked himself. He tried to shoulder through his headache, tried to think. It was a testament of Strongbow's personal strength that the man was taking his disrespect and emotional frustration in the face without batting an eyelash and judging him for it.

"Yes." He rasped miserably.

"Then you will endure." Strongbow said. "You  _have_  to- you've survived this long, haven't you?"

"Sir," Darius responded unhappily. "I have."

"I won't tell you that… you'll be fine. Obviously, you won't." Strongbow gave a heavy sigh. "But you must endure, candidate. You have four more weeks left. Hold on and then you'll be gone from here."

Four weeks, and then it would be over. He clung to that hope instead, that if he managed to tolerate everything he had gone through for four more weeks, then he would be returned to his company, to an Assistant Instructor that seemed to care, to a Chief Instructor that dealt with him fairly.

"Yes sir." He tried to put more life into his voice.

"I will inform Chief Instructor di Castellamonte, and Commander de Montfort of your… difficulties."

He resisted the urge to snap and ignored the passing speck of hope. Whatever plan Strongbow seemed to have, he tried to place his trust in it. "Yes sir."

Strongbow stared at him before he gave a nod. "Alright then, I will… return to my company and-" He stopped midsentence, staring at something over Darius' shoulder.

Darius looked behind him- Assistant Instructor Mohren was shifting uneasily from foot to foot, a guilty look in his eye.

It took every single strand of willpower within him to not suddenly scream at Strongbow that Mohren was guilty as well. Darius held his tongue, watching the two instructors sizing each other up like competitive duelists stared at their opponents.

Dominance Company's Assistant Instructor stared at his counterpart, and the wheels seemed to turn in his own head.

"Sir Strongbow." Mohren's greeting sounded rather wooden.

"Mohren." Strongbow greeted coolly.

"Chief Instructor de Croix requires the… candidate's presence at once." Mohren's voice was half-confident and half-hesitant.

"Ah," Strongbow replied innocently, as if he had never heard Darius break down in front of him. "For what?"

"… I have… not been informed of his motives." Mohren's eyes shifted downward as he avoided the other man's gaze and spoke in halting tones.

"Of course." Strongbow remarked flatly- he looked to be suppressing a grin.

"… Of course." Mohren returned with an awkward cough. "That being said…"

"Have you consulted Senior Hospitalman Conrad?" Strongbow asked him nonchalantly. "Candidate Darius was released into his direct supervision."

"I have-" Mohren would have said more, but the aforementioned man cut him off.

"Nope! Not all all!" Conrad said loudly from his hiding place around the corner of the shed. "I haven't seen your face in a while, Nikett!"

"Ah well," Strongbow gave a careless shrug as he turned his head and watched the hospitalman inch off. "He did what is expected of him, of course, to take care of a candidate. You know how he is, aside from being a rather rude and obsessive eavesdropper, of course."

"Of course." Mohren looked to be holding back a difficult emotion. "I will… request for him to clear the candidate then."

"Of course." Strongbow repeated with a veiled smile.

Darius watched then as Mohren shook his head, grumbling something under his breath as he shouldered past the two of them. He bumped into Strongbow and sent the man back a step on his way out. It wasn't until Nikett was across the grandstand- Conrad had chosen  _this_  particular moment to run as far from the Pit as he could- that Strongbow finally spoke.

"Sir?" Darius queried him- he couldn't quite hear what the man said.

" _Unprofessional_." Strongbow said louder for his benefit, staring at other nobleman's silhouette with contempt. "That man is absolutely unprofessional, I regret recommending him for the post. I should have known he wouldn't be able to hold against de Croix."

"Sir?"

"That," Strongbow gave him a lopsided smirk. "Is how you fight in  _this_  world, candidate."

"It's… something." Darius said, for the lack of a better word. He didn't quite understand what went on- he  _did_  know that Mohren was lying about his medical clearance, but the rest of the conversation had been lost on him.

"You'll learn," Strongbow said somewhat helpfully as he gestured for Darius to follow him. "We all do."

Realization came very slowly as he accompanied Strongbow back to the infirmary but the moment he figured out the entire conversation, he practically gaped at Strongbow for having been so devious.

Mohren had greeted Strongbow with a 'sir'- and Strongbow did not use the same appellation as he addressed him. Later after their conversation, Strongbow mentioned that he had been the one to recommend Mohren into the post. That meant that Strongbow had been in the Academy for longer. He was the senior. So he could not just be coerced into letting Darius go- it was an offense for a junior to go against his senior.

When Mohren had stated his purpose, he was slow and awkward in doing so. In addition, stating that he did not know precisely what de Croix wanted Darius for and not looking at the other instructor in the eye was a clear indication of his guilt and consensus with de Croix. When Mohren tried to get him released back into Adamant Company's responsibility, Strongbow casually brought up the fact that a candidate needed to be cleared by the hospitalman-in-charge, and Conrad had picked up on the subtle hint by denying Mohren's lie and running away from the Pit- a cowardly action, but effective.

"Keep quiet." Strongbow said to him with a smile as Darius opened his mouth to ask him how one learned to be so manipulative. "I am well-aware of having been born into my House, but as others will tell you, it is a fairly recent one, and the… pain is still rather familiar."

"Sir." Darius said instead. "Will you teach me?"

"You simply have to be quicker with your mind, candidate. You have potential."

The two of them halted in the middle of the hallway. Mohren was walking towards them, a paper in one hand and a cross expression on his face. Distantly, they could hear Conrad cackling like a madman in the infirmary.

"Strongbow, sir." Mohren gritted out. "I have the clearance for the candidate."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Strongbow replied lazily.

"Sir-" Mohren looked a bit lost before he realized that the candidate in question was staring at him expectantly. "Ah, yes sir."

"Do enjoy yourself," Strongbow replied, and Mohren ducked his head as he pulled on Darius' arm.

"Come on." Mohren growled under his breath.

"Yes sir." Darius grumbled back, stopping himself from beating the life out of the man who was again leading him to his abuser.

Once more, Darius found himself alone in the familiar set of rooms, watching Alexander de Croix's gauntleted fingers flex expectantly, eyeing him hungrily like a spider who had been starving for a long while. He braced himself for the inevitable beating, but it seemed that de Croix was in a talking mood that night.

"Tell me, little savage, who deserves your respect the most?" de Croix asked him lazily.

Darius stared at him, debating if he should even answer the madman in front of him, and what the man would do to him if he answered. Eventually he decided that there was no real point in conversing with de Croix when he was hungry for blood, but  _maybe_  he could delay his beating. He didn't feel comfortable with postponing his inevitable punishment, because it seemed cowardly and useless to do so, but he was willing to try anything at this point.

"Is it di Castellamonte, the deluded whore? Or perhaps Strongbow the half-blood? Or even that degenerate tarnished tool named Krieg-Windsor?" de Croix watched him eagerly, like a birdwatcher would to a rare avian or like a mantis would to an ignorant fly.

Darius deigned to keep his face and voice expressionless. "The Commander." He said instead.

"The Commander," de Croix snorted humorously. "Really?  _Him_? Do you know what he's done, candidate."

"Yes." The lie emerged roughly, and he wondered if de Croix would take the bait or laugh at him for being pathetic.

"What do you know?" de Croix challenged him.

"Enough." Darius replied laconically.

De Croix looked to hit him, and he mentally braced himself for the psychic force to beat his face into the ground again, but it seemed that he had made the nobleman  _think_ , and every second the spider spent in thought was a second the fly spent in relative safety.

"Enough, you say." Alexander de Croix moved close to him, enough to make alarm bells ring in Darius' head. "Define…  _enough_."

"He has served Noxus." Darius lied again. "Admirably."

"Yes, yes." De Croix said impatiently. "Yes, we all know  _that_. He served alongside Boram Darkwill at the Battle of Baden and did all the heroics expected from a moronic, unimportant blade-wielder with hopes of being given a pat on the head by his father and a recommendation for a better post."

"It is," Darius decided to return the man's words, feeling oddly giddy despite the dangerous proximity the spider had to him. "He had nothing but a small hope to ascend, and he succeeded in doing so through valiant battle- that is admirable, and true to the Noxian way, in itself."

"It is nothing to admire." De Croix snapped like an injured thing. "Nothing!"

"He went to battle," Darius built his own momentum from de Croix's slip of the tongue. "Even if nothing was expected of him, even if he had nothing to look forward to."

"He ran straight into the enemy like a crapulous fool because he has nothing." De Croix sneered.

"Without fear." Darius countered. "Without hesitation- and his gamble resulted in an elevation of his post."

De Croix hissed like a displeased cat. "Bah! It doesn't matter."

"It does," Darius said smoothly. "Because you asked."

"The little savage thinks he's so clever." De Croix sneered as he held out his hand. The crushing force settled on Darius' throat, and he felt the familiar feeling of helplessness settle over him. As much as he wanted to struggle, he stopped himself from doing so- and his action surprised de Croix so much that the man dropped him.

Darius gave a hacking cough as he fought to breathe, staring up at the nobleman with eyes that were being stung with sweat.

"Struggle, little savage." De Croix sounded desperate, his rage hollow.

"Why should I?" Darius taunted him.

"Struggle," de Croix ordered as he shifted his hand, sending Darius flying into one of the bookcases. The noise of the blow echoed in the little office and sent several thick volumes crashing into Darius' back and onto the floor with loud thumps.

Despite having heavy books falling into him, it was absolutely nothing compared to the choking he had suffered before. Certainly, he was still being  _beaten_ , but it was a familiar, physical pain rather than being choked by something he could never fight against- he felt relieved, to say the least.

"Struggle!" de Croix snarled at him as he lifted him into the air. Yet again, Darius held still, counting the seconds until de Croix judged him to be useless and sent him flying into a marble bust. Landing heavily on his arm, he exhaled sharply as it snapped underneath his weight. Breathing heavily as a ragged and throbbing pain blossomed from his elbow, he tried to move it but his nerves would not obey him, driving him over the edge with a stinging pain that seemed to spread to the rest of his body to join his dull hurts instead.

He tried to curl about wounded side, lowering his head as de Croix approached him slowly, cocking his head to one side like a sadistic parrot staring at a cracked open nut. Breathing became increasingly difficult- every single twitch of his body seemed to send more of the flaring agony through his frame.

"Ah, I seem to have broken my little toy." De Croix said with a twisted pout.

"You seem to-" Darius croaked out as he stifled the urge to scream. "Have snapped something."

"It is rather… unfortunate that you haven't collapsed into your silly little nap." Alexander sniffed.

"Losing your touch, I think." Darius wheezed.

"I did not." De Croix snorted with professional disdain.

"I'm not… exactly…" Darius pushed himself off the floor with his other hand even as another crippling wave of pure torture ran through his body. He screwed his eyes shut, panting heavily as he chewed the word out. "Unconscious."

"Are you implying," de Croix's face was suddenly next to his- the aristocrat was bent over on the floor and inspecting his work. "That I have become weaker, little savage?"

"Just saying," Darius sat up, nearly blacking out in doing so. As it was, he pulled himself back just in time by smacking his head against the wall and stared at de Croix blearily. "I'm not… out yet."

"It is a shame you've found… some  _strange_  way to stay awake." De Croix reared back and tapped on his chin curiously.

"Strange indeed." Darius mumbled weakly.

"Perhaps it's time to move on," de Croix laid his fingers on his ensorcelled gauntlet, the red runes disappeared and were replaced by pale white runes that seemed to float in and out of existence. "To better avenues."

"Like what?" Darius asked him softly.

De Croix reached out and wrapped his armored fingers around Darius' broken arm. Unspeakable pain echoed through every single nerve, and Darius instinctively and futilely tried to quail away from the man as his grip tightened on his broken arm. He couldn't resist screaming now, and his hollow cry echoed through the entire room as de Croix twisted his unwilling arm into something unrecognizable as a limb.

But then something happened- a warm feeling began to flood from the crippled limb. His arm rearranged itself with disturbingly loud snaps. He felt strangely at peace as he stared down at his healed arm, and then there was no pain throughout his body- none at all.

"You're a healer," Darius said in disbelief. "That's why… that's why nothing shows, that's-"

"I am," He stroked his gauntlet, and the runes glowed an unholy red. "What I am."

And then there was an impossibly loud snap that took Darius to the brink of existence yet again as an invisible force snapped his arm and crushed it as if a large rock had just fallen onto his side. He screamed himself raw as he tried to back away. There was no escape- he was in a corner and de Croix was blocking the way.

Strange white light- and the same warm sensation. With fear, he realized what de Croix was doing- wounding him in an unspeakable way, and then healing him, and then-

Another snap, another injury to the bones of his right arm that made the bone pierce his flesh. Horrified, he stared at the exposed thing, at the marrow of his radial. He didn't even know that he was screaming.

White light filled his eyes and taunted him with its warmth. Quivering now, even though he did not have any wounds, he stared at de Croix with unadulterated fear in his eyes- and the spider reveled in it.

Angry red and yet another snapping of his bones- this time it was not restricted to his right arm. His left blossomed with unspeakable pain as well, and when he looked, the bones of his left arm were staring right back at him. He threw his head back, screaming and kicking his feet at the nobleman in front of him, but Alexander would not be denied.

White light. His wounds healed.

Red light. His legs now, snapping back on joints that were never meant to bend in a certain direction.

White light, spiteful light-

Red light, and his guts roiled in his frame as his arm broke again.

He didn't know that hours had already passed since Mohren had first taken him to de Croix's office, didn't know that de Croix prolonged each and every break as much as he could to savor his suffering. All Darius knew was that he was breaking slowly, and that he wanted nothing more than to pass out.

But every time he was at the brink, the white light was there, keeping him from going cold, from fading into the kinder abyss that was oblivion. He could not stop screaming, because the light healed his throat, healed his hurts, everything was only in his mind, his  _mind_ -

He felt quite like his brother then- all inhaling and no exhaling, choking on his own spit and his tongue as he tried to breathe and hold air in his lungs. "S-stop," He found himself saying. "Stop it."

"Or what, little savage?" de Croix had a wide smile on his face as the red light of his gauntlet reflected off his face and his merciless green eyes.

There was a very loud explosion at the other side of the room, about the same time as de Croix broke his arms for seemingly the nth time. Darius stared at him blearily as the white light restored his limbs and soothed his throat. Debris clouds billowed in their direction.

"Chief Instructor de Croix," An impossibly deep voice sounded. "I had thought you better."

 _Oh, it's god._  Darius found himself thinking, and he wondered why he was laughing like a lunatic even as he marveled at the throng of people across the room.  _It's god, going to take me away to my parents._

If he had been lucid at this point, Darius would have realized that Alexander de Croix had essentially woken up the entire Cathedral with his howls of agony, and that the training staff had broken down the door using an explosive runestone because it had been locked.

Even with stone walls, the multiple times the nobleman had broken his bones and had sent him howling to the cliffs of his awareness would have woken up the dead. As it was, Darius was almost at the very edge of his sanity, and thought he was imagining things when he saw the familiar faces.

"Chief," He called to di Castellamonte with more cheer than a drunken man. "Look, no hands," And he held up his arms- they were whole and unharmed for now, but his mind still imagined them broken.

Alexander de Croix halted in his torture, the sickly white runes on his gauntlet quickly faded into nothing. He stood up casually, edging away from the chortling thing on the floor that was Darius. Conrad, a bag of medical supplies by his side, watched the candidate laughing on the floor from behind de Montfort with apprehension.

"Better, yes, of course, I deserve better." De Croix was not exactly sane at this point himself- driven drunk by the sheer helplessness and agony that Darius was radiating. "I deserve better than this post."

"You," de Montfort said as his hand went to the sword strapped to his side. "Are insane."

He would have drawn the beautiful blade if it wasn't for the fact that Chief di Castellamonte had held out her hand in objection.

"Sir," Suzanne di Castellamonte cocked her head towards the other Chief Instructor. There was an indescribable fury in her eyes. Her hand was absolutely quivering in rage. "I request permission to put down de Croix."

"Granted." De Montfort grunted out as he shifted to one side.

"Suzanne,  _Suzanne_." Alexander de Croix spread his hands wide, smiling toothily at the training staff by the door. "Why don't you just forgive me?"

"I will not." Chief di Castellamonte pulled out her twin daggers.

There was a fight, which Conrad would delightfully tell him in great detail when he would come to in the infirmary. Chief di Castellamonte was a master of blades, and she had gained renown for being able to move so fast that she seemed to vanish and reappear somewhere else. De Croix had sent a massive force to bear against her, but the Chief Instructor seemed to have flickered out of existence by then. The force plowed into the wall behind her instead, leaving behind a sizable crack in the solid rock. Alexander de Croix had looked around then, obviously straining his ears to hear her footsteps. It only took a blink of an eye, and then she was behind him, burying both daggers into his throat. Blood flew everywhere as she twisted her blades and sent his head flying. But since he was delirious from the trauma, Darius missed all of  _that_. His mind had just caught up to his latest state, and he stared down at his hands as if he had just obtained the limbs for the first time in his life, marveling at the concept of having arms to use.

With de Croix disposed of, the training staff crowded around him before they realized he would need air. De Montfort watching the scene impassively as Conrad sat by Darius' side and inspected him from head to toe.

"Gods above, you're just a delightful little mindfucked thing, aren't you?" Conrad said to him as he practically threw down his bag of supplies next to him.

"I have arms." Darius told him.

"Of course you do." Conrad said soothingly, and then he eyed him worriedly. "I… I have no idea what to do for you. He healed you up, so there's nothing wrong with you really, but you're just-"

"I have arms." Darius repeated.

"Fuck, tell me he didn't drive you insane. That's just what we need: more nutjobs in this entire academy."

Conrad slapped him with the back of his fist.

Yet another burst of pain, and Darius braced himself for the eventual scornful and soothing white glow, but there was no light. He blinked in bemusement, like a child scammed out of a toy, and then stared at Conrad with something like a frown on his face that didn't feel quite right.

"Where's the light?" He asked dazedly.

"Commander, I have no idea how to fix him." Conrad said over his shoulder. "I think he's fucking gone, no thanks to your mad-as-fuck sadist over there."

"Where's the light?" Darius repeated.

De Montfort stared down at the babbling candidate before he cocked his head towards Chief di Castellamonte. The woman bowed her head and then moved forward to see if she could help her candidate.

"There is no light." Chief di Castellamonte was next to try her luck this time, squatting next to him. Her hands were covered with blood and the familiar scent wound its way through Darius' nose and into his mind. He automatically looked down at his arms, blinking in surprise when he saw that no bones were jutting out this time to greet him.

"I'm fine?" He asked bemusedly.

"Yes, you are, candidate." Castellamonte said slowly.

"I… I wasn't fine before." Darius stared up at her, realizing who it was and reminding himself dimly that he should stand up and offer his respects. He tried to move, but his mind would not cooperate with him, and when he did manage to get on his knees he collapsed into a little puddle on the floor.

He felt like a broken mirror- all jagged pieces of trauma-induced memory loss and broken reflections of torture and questionable pain- but he was still  _whole_. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that he  _felt_  fine, but he  _knew_  he was not fine. It was a puzzling argument to be sure, and he fought with the idea that he was actually dreaming and he had not just suffered through the most horrible torture imaginable- having his bones broken and then healed up, and then broken again and then healed up…

"But you're fine now." Castellamonte said. Unlike Conrad, her voice was not at all soothing. It was strong and calm, and he latched onto that strength with desperation he didn't know he had.

"I'm fine now." He said to her.

"Yes, you're fine now." She said patiently.

"And I'm… not fine." He tried to stand up again and failed, banging his jaw against the floor that sent reverberations through his skull. She did not help him, even holding a hand back to stop Conrad from moving forward.

"I'm not fine." He repeated bemusedly.

"You're fine." She pressed on.

"I am?" He stared up at her.

"You are." She confirmed.

"…I wasn't fine." He looked at his hand, and then at his elbow. "But now I'm fine."

"Isn't it about time," Chief di Castellamonte looked down at him crossly. "For you to stand up properly, candidate?"

"Oh yes," Darius mumbled out as he tried to push himself off the floor again. "Yes, I should. Yes, ma'm."

She watched him stand up haltingly, and then when he did manage to stay on the balls of his feet, he quivered with the consistency of gelatin and weaved from side to side like a drunken man- but at  _least_  he was standing up.

"Well done, candidate." She said to him approvingly.

"Yes ma'm." Darius said groggily. "Thank you ma'm."

"I can't tell you how to fix him." Chief di Castellamonte told Conrad. "Except to give him time to recover, but at least he can stand up."

"Of course, that's all we need- a candidate that could stand up but not say anything else other than 'I'm fine', or 'Look, I have arms'." The hospitalman retorted nastily.

"I  _am_  fine." Darius said sullenly.

"Yes you are," Chief di Castellamonte told him. "And it's  _something_ , Conrad. We might as well celebrate the small things."

"I'm not small." Darius protested childishly.

"You know what's small? Your peni-" Conrad was about to finish, but the Chief di Castellamonte cuffed him on the back of the head.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  It is rather harsh, what I did. But I have been told that it's entirely reasonable given the feud. We'll see if Darius gets better, won't we?


	12. The Mountain Bows, The Ocean Splits

_… I have been looking_

_steadily at these elms_

_and seen the process that creates_

_the writhing, stationary tree_

_is torment, and have understood_

_it will make no forms but twisted forms._

**Elms (Louise Glück)**

* * *

 

**THREE MONTHS LATER…**

It is difficult to fully define what type of trauma Darius suffered under Alexander de Croix. Certainly, one could argue that it was more of a physical sort, because he had been thrown about for a good five weeks before the spider had decided to break his bones repeatedly, and after every session his fellow candidates would hold him down and pummel him until he was unconscious. One could also argue that it was more of a psychological assault, because the beatings had been random, and Darius had felt like a hunted thing that could not sleep and think, and after his bones had been broken, he had been healed up before it would be broken again.

Regardless if it was psychological or physical, the fact of the matter remained that he did not feel like himself anymore.

A full three months had passed since Alexander de Croix had met his end at the blades of Chief di Castellamonte. An inquiry had been held within the first week: both the Chief and her candidate had been absolved of all blame by the end of it, despite protests and repeated calls for another inquiry by the House of Croix. It would have certainly have resulted in another feud if it wasn’t for the fact that the Houses of Strongbow, Montpelier and Montfort had risen up in support of their respective scions and of the House of Castellamonte- the lesser nobility, it seemed, looked after its own. The grudge festered in the House of Croix because Maynard was still Head of House, but there would be no trouble for the next few years at least, not with four Houses standing with each other. As far as politics went, it was rather piddling to have four lesser Houses banding against a more prestigious one, and so nothing really changed in the political landscape of Noxus.

Darius had spent a whole three weeks in the infirmary trying to deal with the concept of being whole and yet  _not_. The physical aspect was easy enough- he had been healed before the spider had died, and so there was really  _nothing_  wrong with him. He could still exercise without feeling any pain, could go through his drills without any complaint and keep up his regimen throughout his rehabilitation. It was the mental aspect that was difficult for him- he had never been one to trust easily, and he had always been so stubborn in his ways and reticent about his own feelings.

For the first week, despite repeated attempts by Conrad and the rest of the infirmary staff; Darius kept sullen and quiet, resorting to violence when pressed. He did not want to talk about his experiences at all, and would huddle resentfully in his cot like a child being punished until Conrad finally gave up and ranted to Chief di Castellamonte about her ‘ _fucking blockheaded favorite candidate’_.

After that, at the end of the day when exercises were finished for all the standards, Chief di Castellamonte would come in from the field and talk to him. Unlike any other person, she did not press him to talk about what he had experienced; she did not ask how he was feeling or if he was having dreams. She simply sat down next to his bed and talked to him about the weather, about his education, about the other candidates in Dominance, about how the food in the infirmary was and on his axe-work and if he was still exercising, and it was a welcome change for everyone when Darius finally decided to open his mouth by the end of the second week and admit that he had felt scared out of his mind when he was being tortured, that he had wanted to weep but could not when he had been pinned down by his fellow candidates, that he wanted to stop dreaming about gnashing teeth and grinning skulls and a soft white light that never stopped to haunt him.

Suffering from an acute attack of guilt, Conrad had nothing to say on how to help Darius at that point, because he had previously told the young man to ignore his discomfort. Chief di Castellamonte had ordered him to keep busy, and informed him that everything had happened in the past- there was no point in letting it decide his future- he either learned from the experience or failed because of it.

It was during the third day of the second week that di Castellamonte took the time to talk to him about his parents. He would remember that day forever, like a brand burnt onto his flesh. The summer heat was giving way to cooler winds, and the dark monsoon clouds were gathering in the distance.

Earlier that day, Conrad had had done some blood tests and had measured Darius’ height, weight and muscle mass because the younger man was getting taller and bulkier even if he hadn’t changed his intake in weeks. Results in hand, the hospitalman shrewdly determined that Darius’ growth was a result of the peculiarities of Alexander’s magic. Apparently, having his bones broken and then healed repeatedly had evidently made Darius stronger, and the rest of his body that had been left relatively untouched had only flourished with the healing magic.

When the Chief went into the infirmary that cool afternoon then, there was an aura of delight inside the ward: Conrad was practically tittering with glee at his results, and Darius was feeling slightly better about his torment even if there were still hollows under his eyes and a worn and tired expression on his face.

“Good afternoon, Chief.” Darius had greeted her when he saw her. She pulled the black and red peaked hat off her head- by some unspoken agreement between the instructors; they had all decided to change into their monsoon attire and now she was wearing a water-resistant leather coat over her usual ensemble- and then had returned his greeting with a casual nod.

“Candidate,” She had said smoothly as she took her customary place by his bed. “I heard that you’ve become something of a superhuman.”

“Not at all, ma’m.” Darius had replied rather sheepishly.

They sat in silence then. Di Castellamonte seemed to be content to simply sit and watch him impassively. Darius on the other hand had been sitting on a question that had been eating away at him since Conrad had first called the Chief Instructor to the infirmary.

“Ma’m, may this candidate ask a question?” He had asked after some time.

“You may.” She had replied as she placed the peaked cap on top of her knees. She could have been a very convincing statue at that moment: there was not a single strand of hair out of place on her head; her clothes were absolutely impeccable even if she had just come from the field; her eyes were staring down at him without any sort of real emotion.

“This candidate is… mildly curious why the Chief Instructor is here,” Darius had said awkwardly. As her expression never changed, he had tried to not quail under her unemotional stare. “Rather… excuse me for my rudeness but I just… why  _are_  you here, Chief Instructor?”

He had braced himself for her retaliatory strike- he had felt that he did not address her as well as he thought he could have- but she had excused his impudence.

“Did your father ever… talk about me?” She had tilted her head at him, a shadow of an emotion on her face.

Darius had shaken his head.

“I see.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes were still roiling with that emotion.

Darius had found himself pondering on the emotion that he was seeing in her as she seemed to debate on her next words.

Darius couldn’t quite pin the emotion to something at that point- was it regret? It seemed too raw to be regret. Jealousy then? That was too much of a petty emotion, he did not think that the Chief would be so base. Was it sorrow? She did not seem depressed. Was it anger? The feeling did not seem right for her. In the way of people who placed others on a pedestal, he found that he couldn’t imagine her having any other emotion other than a sort of cold and distant pride.

 “He never did tell you, of course. That was his way.” Chief di Castellamonte’s lip had twisted into a frown. It was a familiar expression; she had always frowned at them all, but her frowns had always looked slapped on, wooden. This frown was different now, because that mysterious emotion had suddenly given it  _depth_. Her next words had sounded as if she was asking herself rather than the candidate in front of her. “I expected that, but why do I still feel surprised?”

Darius realized then that what she was practically broadcasting was raw and unadulterated  _spite_. It was a strange thing to see her so filled with  _emotion_ , particularly one so childish- he had always seen her with nothing in her eyes and in her harsh voice.

“Did… did you know him?” Darius ventured meekly.

“ _Knew_  him? I  _loved_  him.” She had given a grim chuckle as she had reared back and stared up at the ceiling. Darius had watched her throat, he didn’t know  _why_  he was doing it but he  _did_ , and he saw a long and white scar on her neck stretch gently with every word that emerged from her mouth. “Ah, perhaps I still do.”

He had no idea what to think then. Chief di Castellamonte having some sort of past with his father certainly did explain her intervention against de Croix and the constant visitations better than thinking that she felt  _responsible_  for him, but then again- with  _that_  emotion behind her eyes, it was glaringly obvious that his father had inflicted sort of wound and he had absolutely no idea what it was because Hystaspes had  _never_  been talkative about  _himself_ \- war stories he had aplenty, personal tales he did not.

“What do you know of your parents, candidate?” The Chief seemed at that point to have aged immensely.

It occurred to Darius then that he never really  _knew_  his parents.

He had always seen his parents as  _perfect_ and unquestionable: his mother was ever-patient; his father had always been strong. His mistake all those years ago had taken them away from him before he had become mature enough to see Hystaspes and Athenais as  _people_  instead of gods, and now he was faced with a woman- former lover, admirer, stalking spinster, he wasn’t quite sure- who seemed to know his parents’ intimate secrets. It was disconcerting, but at the same time he found himself wanting to hear more about two people he had spent a majority of his life with but did not truly  _know_.

“Not much,” He had admitted somewhat shamefully.

“Well. That is rather irresponsible of the two of them,” And she had leaned back into her chair, relaxing for the first time in weeks it seemed. “And I will correct that. I suppose that we should begin with your father. Wolfman, that was what the Demacians called him, owing to his controlled ferocity and dogged resilience- no matter what they did, he would still remain standing… that is, until they cut his leg out from underneath him. I suppose they  _do_  have a sense of humor.” She had looked down at him, still such a statue with her straight back and her rough voice.  “The Wolf’s Pit here was named after him.”

“Did he attend the Academy?” Darius had tilted his head.

“No.” She had replied with a sort of strange smile that did not quite fit on her face. “He didn’t think that he needed it, even if he had absolutely nothing to his name until he was conscripted. After which he displayed an immeasurable bravery on the field.”

Darius had found himself staring at her curiously. He could not imagine his father refusing to attend the best military academy in the entire city-state. The older man had always been opportunistic, had always encouraged his sons to seize initiative and to take whatever offer for a better life they could possibly have. This was a side of the man that he had no idea about, and to compound his bemusement, the woman in front of him sounded as if she was talking about someone else entirely.

“How did you… come to know him?” Darius had probed.

“As a blademaster under his command, Commander du Couteau allowed me to serve on the front lines with the rest of the infantry- he understood my need to seek glory and honor for my House.” She had caught his questioning gaze then, because she had continued. “Though I was trained by the Commander himself to mimic his fast step, I am not an assassin; I did not want to remain in the shadows like a skulking pathetic thing. There is no glory to be found in the dark, no accolades for those who tread in the night.”

“You fought beside my father then.” Darius had pointed out. He had heard his father’s stories but he had wanted to hear about his own father from someone else who clearly knew more about him than his own son. “How was he, as a warrior?”

“At the second battle of Baden, at Mogron Pass, at Jacob's Ford- I can name several more battles but those three were the most worthy to note.” Di Castellamonte had chosen to elaborate further. “Your father was Noxus’ finest, one of the most ruthless and bloody axe-wielders on this pitiful earth, aside from Sion and Urgot. But unlike Sion, your father knew how to  _control_  his anger. And unlike Urgot, your father knew  _caution_. I suppose that is why he only lost his leg, rather than his hands or his sense of self-perseveration. As our bloody engagements increased, I found myself…  _admiring_  him, and… I will not say more.”

Darius shifted uneasily in his seat. Of course, it should have occurred to him that his father would have had others before his mother, but to have  _that_  person in front of  _him_ \- he didn’t know what to feel, or do, or even  _say_.

 “And your mother,” Di Castellamonte had let out a vindictive sigh- obviously she did not want to talk about the person she perceived to be the  _other_  woman.  “What do you know of your mother? Do you know what she did during her conscription?”

“She didn’t want me to know.” He had said uncomfortably, somehow managing to both regret and look forward to every passing second of their conversation with a sort of bizarre curiosity.

“She served under Commander du Couteau, as I did.” Chief di Castellamonte had tilted her head at him, utterly shameless as she elaborated on another target for her ire. “Not as a blademaster, but as a spy. Her talents lay in subterfuge and trickery- not in the fast step, not in knife work or in glorious battle. Still, she was a wily one; there were times that a battle would be certain to go awry, and then she would be sent to the field: to coerce, to infiltrate, to do whatever it took for the odds to be weighed towards a Noxian victory.”

Darius had remembered the day of the execution, had remembered the red-haired man in the balcony who was cradling a two year old child in his arms. His mother had upon that person with veneration in her eyes and the man had given her a heavily-veiled smile. He had wondered how the man would look like now and came to the conclusion that not much would have changed; it would only have been two years or three at most. The child would be taller now, and would stand perhaps at his hip instead of his knee.

“He was at the execution.” Darius had found himself saying. “That Commander.”

“Yes, she was  _everyone’s_  favorite.” And di Castellamonte’s tone then was sardonic and black. “Why he felt her deserving of  _his_  presence, I do not know. She  _failed_  him.”

“Ma’m.” Darius had said, purely because he had nothing else to say.

 “Simply think,” She had begun with a wistful tone in her voice, indulging in a possible future that only she could understand. “What could have been, if your father had only listened to me, hm? You would have had a House name when you were born- he was so  _close_  to having one before he left the field- and a better life.”

 “If he had listened to you…?” Darius had asked her, half-anxious and half-excited to know what exactly she meant.

“ _’The Wolfman was being an emotional fool’_ , that was what we all thought. I called him worse names.” Di Castellamonte had stated. “It was a disgrace, I  _told_  him so, to throw away everything he had for that  _failure_  of a spy, but he took my insults in stride. He never did listen to anyone but your mother, never did place anyone else’s opinion above his own. I did not believe him when he told me that he would be leaving the military for  _her_. Instead of seeking glory with me, as he  _should_  have done, he retired once your mother’s conscription was over. And then you were born,” She had given a laugh that did not fit her face and her tone of voice. “And now  _you_  are here, and they are  _dead_ , and I find myself seeing the two of them in  _you_. It is such a strange feeling, candidate, to be seeing  _both_  of them in one person.”

“I’m… I’m not sure I understand, ma’m.” The walking result of what the Chief perceived as Hystaspes’ and Athenais’ mistake had said sheepishly.

“Did they ever tell you how they met?”

Darius shook his head.

“At a certain place, at a certain time, your mother was caught by Demacians. Her mission had been successful, but she had been intercepted on her way back to her rendezvous point.” Di Castellamonte had looked to be reciting from a book, albeit a book that seemed to give her a paper cut every time she finished a word. “She refused to bend, of course. That is our way. The Demacians tortured her for her silence, then strung her about the branches of a tree and left her to die as an example to other Noxian spies. Your father was patrolling that stretch of the woods, and he found her. By all rights, he  _should_  have put her to the knife. It would have been better for everyone if he did and even your mother begged for him to do so. But no, he picked her up and took her back behind our lines, and then everything simply went… out of control.”

“Out of control?” Darius had echoed, feeling more confused than ever.

“Why would you spare a spy who was  _caught_?” Her voice had been filled with nothing but animosity; her eyes had been beseeching him for some sort of explanation that he could never procure. “It absolutely  _confounds_  me, candidate, until this day: why did he even take pity on her when our way is to grant honorable death? Why did he let her live when she herself  _begged_  for release?”

“I don’t know.” Darius had said awkwardly. Not for the first time since their deaths, he wished vainly that his parents were still alive, if only to explain to him why Chief di Castellamonte was so spiteful.

It was difficult to imagine that they were talking about the same people. Darius only knew the gruff man he called father, the calm woman he called mother. She only remembered the woman she had called her rival, it seemed, and the man she had once called her…  _whatever_  it was that she called him: battle brother, lover, role model,  _everything_.  

Steeped in thought of their different shared pasts with the same people, Darius tried to remember his childhood while she stared far away at some memory only she could see. The silence was an understanding of the radical differences that Hystaspes the  _man_ , Hystaspes the  _warrior_  and Hystaspes the  _father_  had been for the two of them, of the perplexing enigma that was Athenais the  _woman_ , Athenais the  _spy_  and Athenais the  _mother_.

“I never saw my father use his battle axe.” Darius had mused out loud despite a mysterious ache in his chest. He was uncertain as to why he was talking about such in front of Chief di Castellamonte, but he wanted to say it anyway. "Not once."

“He traded his skill with it for a butcher’s knife, or a miner’s pick, or a woodcutter’s saw- whatever it was that he did afterwards.” She had said dismissively. “Such a waste of talent- he could have returned to us at any time, but he chose to…  _deteriorate_  in that disgusting hole in the ground. He could have lived better.”

“But he was always proud of it.” Darius had added, and the memories of the massive man regaling him and Draven with tales of his exploits as his mother cooked in the kitchen and reminded him to wash his hands bubbled to the surface- slightly lopsided teeth, big smile and crinkled eyes.

“Hanging up on the wall, rusting away like his martial skill.” This defense of his father’s choice too she had dismissed.

“And he never stopped reminding my brother and me about what it stood for.” He had ventured, even as flashes of bygone days moved through his mind: of afternoons spent in imaginary battlefields, climbing over and ducking under his father's bulk, tapping on his wooden leg and pulling at his beard. 

“His expertise, thrown away into the gutter for the sake of some absurd emotion and some…  _random_  bint.” She had sniffed disdainfully. “Given enough training here, you would not be that weak, I think.”

“ _Weak_?” He had echoed uncertainly, the memories whittled back into nothing.

“Ah, that is a different matter entirely, one that he always reminded  _me_  of. What  _did_  he tell you about love, candidate?”

“That it was a confusing word.” He had said almost childishly.

She threw back her head and gave a hoarse laugh. Darius had squirmed uncertainly. This had been her second laugh thus far, and it was still so strange to watch and to listen to- it  _was_  bitter and filled with a wound inflicted before his time that had obviously festered into something gangrenous.

 “Senior Instructor?” He had ventured.

“A ‘confusing word’.” She had breathed out in between chuckles. “Candidate, it is not at all confusing. It is extremely simple: love is a  _weakness_ , and it will either kill  _you_ , or the one that you  _supposedly_  love. The only thing you can love, without repercussion, without strife, is your state.”

He had eyed her hesitantly and then had decided to point out her earlier remark simply because he was still so confused and he had wanted to know what was so wrong with  _everything_. “… But you mentioned that you loved him.”

“And I was a fool to do so.” She had replied primly- obviously she had excused his impudence for the nth time. “Even gods make mistakes, candidate.”

He had absolutely no idea what to say to  _that_ \- really, the entire conversation was extremely uncomfortable for him.

“But, you are here now.” She had said, almost to herself. “Mistakes can be repaired, weakness hammered out.”

“I don’t think… I don’t think he made a mistake.” And Darius had said this very softly, because he did not want to insult his instructor and deny his parents the respect they obviously deserved.

“You are so innocent,” Chief di Castellamonte had reached out at him then. Darius had let her give him a pat on his cheek, unsure of what she wanted from him other than a willing ear to hear all her complaints and her regrets. She looked at him then in the way that only an ignored aunt or a jilted lover could do when faced with the product of a union they had never approved of: with a sort of bitter pride and a cold smile. “Fear not. Whatever foolish ideals he instilled in you, I will rectify. Whatever useless values she lent to you, I will purge.  _That_  is the sworn duty of an instructor, candidate.”

Her words had haunted him for the rest of the week, and it was not because she knew more about his parents than he did; it was not because she obviously still felt hurt after his father had rejected her in order to marry his mother; it was not because she thought him some sort of instrument to get back at the person who had wronged her; it was not because she had eased herself into the role of surrogate parent. Her words haunted him because she had felt that his parents had raised him  _wrong_.

Darius did not know any better, that was true, but he did not think he could have been the person he was if Hystaspes and Athenais had not taught him the way they did. They had taught him to be responsible, to fulfill his promises and to give his absolute in whatever duty they saw fit to give him.

Darius had not been given the best childhood, had not been raised on velvet couches and had never held a silver spoon in his hand but he knew that he would not trade his parents for anything else in the world. If he could only afford necromancy, he probably would have tried to resurrect them- he ached to be held again without fearing a reprisal, longed to hear their voices throwing him wisdom and well-intentioned warnings, yearned to have even a small sliver of their never-ending patience and damnable understanding.

Simply put, now that he knew  _more_  of what they had  _been_ , he found himself missing his parents anew with all his heart- but he knew that it was  _his_  fault that they were gone, and if he could weep again, he would have.

But life did not wait for regretful teenagers. At the start of the second month, Darius had informed the training staff that he finally felt fine, that he could tell the difference between what he perceived in his mind and what he was sensing with his hands. They had him transferred back into Dominance Company that same day, and his fellow candidates had welcomed him back with knowing looks in their eyes and ready smiles on their mouths.

The transition was what his instructors would call a success, because he was never bothered by his fellow candidates afterwards, but it did not feel that way to Darius. The scars were still there no matter how much he tried to tell himself he was fine. He still could not sleep on some nights when he felt that the entire room would trounce on him. He could never tolerate anyone staring at him for too long, because then he would start to wonder what they were thinking, and he would lash out whenever someone he did not recognize would touch him- even a brush on his arm would sent his fist or his axe flying into the person’s face.

The trauma of having his bones broken and healed up repeatedly had torn gaps in his memories that he felt mysteriously frustrated over, because he couldn’t remember, but at the same time he felt strangely relieved because he didn’t  _want_  to remember the sound of snapping bones, the excruciating pain that reverberated through his nerves and the sadistic white light that followed and haunted him with its pleasant heat.

Training intensified, if it was at all possible to do so, when the staff took them to the sea for a whole week. The swimming aspect of the program did not really matter in the candidates’ overall performance, they had been told, because most of them were going into the army and not into the navy. Still, Darius couldn’t help but feel mortified by the end of the week: he could not swim, and this section of the program was the only part that he failed miserably and horribly.

After all, he had never swum in his life. Upon arriving at the beach, the instructors had them do exercises until they were well and truly tired, and then they tied weights to their arms and legs. Without preamble, the instructors had thrown candidates into the raging waves, screaming at them to swim two hundred yards out to touch a buoy and then to come back.

Darius did not know how to negotiate with the ocean, did not know how to keep his head above the waves. At one point in time, he sank like a rock and had to be bodily carried out and thrown onto the black sand by Senior Instructor Krieg-Windsor, with Conrad beating on his chest to make sure that he still knew how to breathe air.

“Oh thank the gods; I don’t want to  _have_  to kiss you.” The man had told him with a grimace, and Darius had stared at him in utter bemusement until another candidate washed up with water in their lungs and the hospitalman had to give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He found himself making a face that sent Strongbow into a fit of muffled laughter.

Once sea week had ended, the instructors took them to the jagged Noxian peaks. They had learned how to read maps and to navigate using compasses and runestones in the lecture halls, but now the instructors tested their very limits. It was another week of torture, but of a different kind: yet again they were loaded down with one hundred pound weights, but now they were restricted to one meal a day and the instructors began throwing sharp volcanic rocks at stragglers and beating at the backs of their legs with switches made of young tree branches. Their orders were pretty much the same: go to a certain place and be back in time for the only meal you would ever get for the day. Hunger was an excellent motivator and exhaustion even more so.

Several candidates were injured during the mountain phase. Whether the wounds were inflicted willingly or unwillingly it did not really matter. Those who wanted to stay with the company were healed and then sent back. Even Darius was not an exception- he had broken his ankle while scaling a mountain, and had to be held down to be healed because he was still not comfortable with healing magic in general.

“I’m actually pleased,” Strongbow had shared with him privately during a quiet night spent as firewatch. “That no one wandered off and died this time.”

“People wander off?” Darius had asked him as he chewed vigorously on the thick strips of jerky he had been given as a ration for the day.

“Well, obviously they don’t remember how to read a map.” The archer had shrugged casually. “It’s not really my problem.”

From the mountains, the instructors took them to the insect-filled swamps. The packs were a familiar weight by then, hunger an old foe that was easy to ignore given the right mindset. The instructors threw in a new obstacle: sleep-deprivation. Where they had once been able to obtain a good eight hours of rest in between trials, the instructors hounded them to the edges of their minds by jumping on candidates who drifted off, by shaking trees and letting the pigment bugs inside keep the candidates awake with their human-like screams.

New tasks were given, in addition to the usual foot patrols and troop movements; they were given specific places to assault and to defend, pitted against other equally exhausted companies. There were many moments where candidates simply dropped into the sucking mud, giving in to gravity, exhaustion and hunger. Seeing hospitalmen like Conrad diving after candidates who were being eaten by the swamps became a regular occurrence.

“Of course we could just let them die,” Conrad had told him after spitting a clod of dirt into Darius’ eye. “But then again if we did that, none of you would remain for the Crucible. You got sucked into a bog too.”

“This  _isn’t_  the Crucible?” Darius had asked him, aghast.

“No, this is the training  _for_  the Crucible.” The hospitalman had said with a roll of his eyes.

 _If this was training for the Crucible,_  his mind had told him nastily.  _Then what kind of torture would the Crucible itself be?_

There were others in the company who held onto the very thin hope that they were already doing the Crucible, but even that was wrestled from their hands on the last day of the swamp phase.

“Why are we hard on you?” Chief di Castellamonte had asked them after a particularly exhausting afternoon of wading through putrid swampland and engaging one of their sister companies in mock warfare that gave Darius more than his fair share of cuts thanks to his frontline style. For his part, he had crippled three candidates and they all had to be sent to the healers because the damage was too much to simply slap a bandage over. “It is because next week shall be the week of the Crucible. Next week, most of you will be gone- dead or otherwise sent home.”

They had returned to the Academy that same day, and Darius had collapsed into his bunk soon after showering because he simply was too exhausted. It was a good thing also, that the instructors had worn him down so much- he did not dream.

Darius didn’t know how many hours had passed before someone called his name.

He opened his eyes a crack, and then focused on the face that was peering at him through the darkness of the longhouse. The proximity unnerved him, and he instinctively sent his fist flying into the other person’s face. Lucky for the two of them, the other person ducked his head with a muffled curse.

“Easy with the fist, big guy!” The person said to him as he held both hands up in surrender. Darius’ heart was pounding in his chest as he pushed himself up and threw his weight against the headrest of his bunk.

“What?” He breathed out, trying to ignore the palpitations in his chest, trying to tell himself that he was safe now- this was Dominance Company and these people would not  _hurt_  him so.

 “We’re going to give Varinius a blanket party before the Crucible tomorrow.” The familiar, ruddy face of Candidate Hawklight said to him. The man was named Hawklight and only that- he was not a noble at all. “I thought you would want to, seeing as he did come from Adamant. It’s his last day with us too.”

“A blanket party?” He repeated. “What’s…”

“It’s what they did to you.” Hawklight said, and Darius resisted the urge to remember, to feel the heavy blanket on top of his frame and to struggle against the gag. He pushed himself out of his memories with difficulty, reminding himself that Hawklight was still in front of him, watching him, judging him-

“No.” Darius said, and he felt sick when he said it.

“It’ll be good for you.” Hawklight chided him gently. “They did it to you after all.”

“Who told you that?” Darius asked him warily- he didn’t think that his fellows from Dominance would be aware of his beatings, of the numerous times the candidates from Adamant had held him down and had made him weak and utterly helpless.

“ _Everyone_  knows.” Hawklight said, as if it was a very basic thing like breathing or why the sky was blue.

“What do you mean everyone knows?” Darius hissed at him.

“Those bitches from Adamant,” Hawklight cocked his head over to where Varinius was sleeping in his bunk. “Liked to brag.”

Darius followed his stare and tried to imagine himself pummeling the other candidate with an improvised weapon. He found that he could not.

He had known Alexander de Croix’s motives before the man’s death, had known that he was being hunted down because he had killed the man’s brother. Darius had sympathized with him then, and still did now- given the same situation, he would have done the same thing without a doubt: he would inflict misery onto the person who would hypothetically kill his brother with the same amount of relentlessness and cold-bloodedness. He could think of no reason why he would not pursue blood with blood.

He did not think he possessed the same fortitude with torture sessions. Frankly, he didn’t know what to feel- he wanted revenge, certainly, but he knew what it felt like to be held down and then thrashed into unconsciousness and he wholeheartedly did not want to wish the same fate onto someone else so soon after he himself had been subjected to five whole weeks of seemingly random beatings.

 “It’ll be good for you.” Hawklight repeated as he held out a bar of soap wrapped in a shirt.

Darius stared down at it and ignored the memory that was pushing against his mental gates- the sheer anxiety, the sleep-deprivation and the maddening sense of being watched and then trodden down... “I don’t know.” He mumbled.

“Don’t be a wimpy Demacian, Dar. Just do it.” Hawklight said with a roll of his eyes. “Do you really want to just let him slide for what he did to you?”

“No, I don’t.” He admitted.

“Then do it.” Hawklight offered the shirt to him again.

Darius took it uncertainly- not knowing  _what_  to feel,  _if_  he should even be feeling anything at this moment. It seemed to him that someone else had taken a hold of his body, making him walk over to Varinius’ bunk with the rest of Dominance Company. Two candidates pulled the blanket over Varinius’ frame and then held on tightly, while a third pulled a washcloth over the man’s mouth and then pushed downward. Like a single monstrous organism, Darius and the rest of the candidates fell on him, pummeling away with their makeshift weapons.

It was a bizarre experience, to have been the one being held down and to now be the one holding onto an instrument of hurt- he couldn’t help but compare himself with the man in the bed, judging Varinius as the aristocrat squirmed helplessly in front of him. He found himself thinking that ‘ _no, I did not cry like that_ ’ and ‘ _no, I didn’t piss in my shorts’_  as he whacked away, each and every stroke harder than the last. Eventually he realized that he was the only one left still hitting the candidate, and he dumbly lowered his weapon when he saw that Varinius was nothing but a sobbing, quivering mass of flesh on the bed, the pungent smells of feces and urine permeating the air.

 _How pathetic._  He found himself thinking.

“Well done.” Hawklight said to him. “Do you feel better now?”

“I don’t know.” He said, and that was the truth.

He handed the weapon back to Hawklight and returned to his bunk, and as Varinius sobbed away, Darius found himself covering his head with his pillow and closing his eyes. As the night went on, he wished that he could tune out the man’s muffled weeping, wanted to stop feeling so hollow and disgusted with himself for having done the deed and prayed that the soaring feeling of accomplishment at having shown the aristocrat how it had felt for him would never wane.

What people do not realize is that it is a debilitating thing to actually  _know_  the pain that one could inflict on one’s enemy. Because of the torture Darius had endured, he would be one of a few Noxian generals who would  _never_  see any point in prolonging suffering, who would prefer quick executions instead of taking his time. He would hone his skills with the axe to the point of being able to quickly jump from man to man, beheading his targets as if they were sitting down and waiting for the axe to fall.

Was it a weakness to avoid wishing torture on others? In some circles of Noxus, Darius’ eventual tendency towards outright murder instead of prolonged suffering would be perceived as a kindness that  _must_  be stomped out in order to function correctly. It would certainly be inconvenient to have a torturer who could not bear to wound people for information, or to have an executioner who could not deliver the final blow.

He would still cut into arteries and nerves in order to cripple his opponents because it was expedient and it would get his foes out of his way quickly, but he was not a sadist- he did not enjoy wounding people for the sake of it and he certainly felt nothing but a distant pity at their suffering. Years after his own trauma, he still would feel disgusted with himself whenever he would see the effects of his work for an extended period of time, and would put whoever it was out of their misery shortly after with a quick stroke of his axe.

Sleep did not come easy, but eventually it did- and when he came to next, his ears were filled with a loud clanging noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Darius pushed himself out of bed and opened his eyes. The sight that awaited him was one that had played out many times over the course of one year- Strongbow was ringing a shrill bell that set everyone’s teeth on edge as Krieg-Windsor yanked on blankets and sent still-sleeping candidates to the floor.

Chief di Castellamonte was in full regalia. Even though it was still too early in the day that the sun had not yet deigned to show itself to the rest of Runeterra, the Chief Instructor was impeccable as always, the familiar riding crop in one hand and her other clasped behind her back as she paced through the longhouse- a calm and constant thing in a veritable storm of clanging metal, flopping bodies and flying things.

“Warrior-children,” Her hoarse voice somehow managed to soar above the cacophony of noise. “Today is the day of your baptism. Today you will be cast into the Crucible. For the next seven days, we will test you. We will shadow your every step, watch your every twitch and judge your every action- those we do not deem worthy will be cast off. If you survive, you will be given the right to live.”

She seemed to look at him then, and he took great care to cast his gaze down, to keep himself busy with fixing his bed and gathering his things. “If you perish, then may whatever god have mercy on your soul, for Noxus will not.”

The Crucible had begun.

* * *

 

 **Author's Notes:**  Why yes I do not regret ending at a cliffhanger at all. It'll be great (and a thousand times more awkward) trust me.


	13. The Pathway to the Stars

 

_Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,_

_And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die._

_As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;_

_For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack._

**The Law of the Jungle (Ruyard Kipling)**

* * *

**FIVE HOURS LATER...**

During monsoon season, the entire city-state of Noxus had a disturbing predisposition towards flooding. No matter how much High Command prepared for the incoming storms by clearing storm drains, evicting illegal settlers from canals and removing blockages from pipes, at least one Ward would always be up to its collective eyes in water and the entire Basic Infantry School would sink and utterly succumb to the bloated marsh that it was built upon. Whenever  _that_  occurred, current candidates and graduates of the School, the infamous Noxian exile Riven among them, would often joke that it was time for the water phase of the program.

In the city, it was always quite easy to tell which Ward would flood horribly- the animals would evacuate first, scurrying out of drain pipes, sewer covers, dark burrows and cracks in the cobbled pavement. Cockroaches and rats would take to the streets en masse; the sound of clicking chitin, flapping wings and flicking tails would fill the air. If there were still people in the streets, they would run from the slithering, skittering black horde, jumping on crates and up walls to avoid the parade of pests. Of course, one could simply stand in the way, because the creatures were fleeing for their lives and had only self-preservation in mind, but in the same way that mankind is afraid of the dark there is also an intrinsic fear of being consumed by creatures regarded as carrion eaters and pests.

In pigment bug farms, the insects would fill the air with their human voices as they crawled out of cracks in dead wood and headed up to the highest branches to escape the black flood that came from the craggy, treeless peaks. It was quite a sight to see if one was relatively new to Noxus: fields of charred and blackened trees, some as wide as three men holding hands and encircling the trunk, and every jagged bough laden not with fruit or leaves but with a million squealing portly bugs as they clamped their jaws onto the wood and sought shelter from what would surely be a devastating and deep flood.

In the countryside, it would seem as if the entire landscape would be bracing itself for the surge. The land around Noxus was naturally barren- trees were either tall and wide or short and stubby. The animals were, like Noxians themselves, robust, resilient, cunning and largely omnivorous. Apex predators like sleek mountain cats, gargantuan bears and black-furred wolves would head for higher ground. Insects, like red-headed centipedes and sinuous earthworms, would dig in deeper.

Coarse haired, ashen long faced hornless deer would scrape their long canines on tree trunks to mark their territory, carving out an ' _I'll be back'_  note into the bark before they too would flee. Shaggy-haired black rats and pug-nosed mountain coati would relocate to temporary burrows or crawl into hollows of trees, only emerging after the deluge to band together in noisy groups and feast on fallen fruit, displaced eggs or on whatever unlucky thing that managed to drown. Regardless of their ferocity and grace, every single creature would flee before the wrath of nature.

Hours before the storm would reach the mainland, an eerie silence would settle over the landscape- crows would cease cawing, insects would stop chirping, bears and wolves would stifle the calls in their throats. At that point, the humans themselves would realize that the storm would be upon them, and it would be humanity's turn to be hectic and loud. Homes would be boarded up, sand bag barricades erected in flood-prone Wards and valuables tucked away into watertight cases. There would be a mad dash towards marketplaces and stores as humans would hoard food and survival supplies by the dozens.

And then the monsoon season would begin in earnest, battering Noxus for months with brief lulls of overcast weather in between tempests. Sheets of freezing rain would fall onto the earth as thunder would arc through the air and leave a metallic taste in one's mouth. Howling gales would topple trees; black tides would descend from the mountainside and fill dry gorges with churning water. Previously hellish and dusty landscapes would turn into deceptively flat planes of sucking black mud and sharp rocks.

In the city, the privileged would sit out the season in relative comfort, throwing logs into massive firepits to keep the cold and dampness away, drinking brandy to soothe frazzled nerves, preparing elaborate banquets, planning gatherings and playing parlor games to pass the time between hurricanes. The poor would huddle in what shelter they managed to procure, ignoring the gnawing of their stomachs and the aching of their bones, stifling sneezes and wiping away dripping mucus, self-medicating with bottles of cheap gin and passing out in drunken hazes. Depending on the person then, monsoon season could either be the peak of the social calendar or the deepest pit of hell.

For his part, Draven had a love-hate relationship with rainy days. When he had been younger, he had watched his parents frantically stockpile wood and supplies. Athenais would be drying fish by the thousands, nigh infusing the smell into their skin. Hystaspes would be gathering logs and bags of sand. Darius would alternate between helping the two of them and keeping him entertained. The storms would finally fall, and because they lived underground, the tunnels would inevitably flood and the water would be knee-deep at the very least, brackish and bubbly, filled with human refuse and whatever things that came from the upper levels.

On the worst days, Darius and Hystaspes would push sandbags up to the door because the water would be lapping at it; Athenais would ask for his help in piling their furniture up- even the beds were stacked one on top of the other. Hystaspes would hang a brazier from the ceiling using a chain, and would sporadically throw logs into it to keep the fire burning. All the fish and whatever else his mother had managed to squirrel away would go into crates lined with precious and expensive oilskin, to be opened only during mealtimes.

Sometimes his father would take a poker and a lantern, and then he would go out into the flooded tunnels and get rid of blockages. In the evening, the four of them would huddle underneath the dampened covers and do their best to sleep through the putrid smells and gushing waters outside. The only source of light would be from the brazier, and the only warmth would come from his father- who somehow always managed to radiate heat even through the coldest and wettest of nights.

When the Blood Brothers had stayed with Matron, Draven would watch Darius make the same controlled but frantic preparations, somehow managing to echo both his mother and his father in the way that he squirreled away food in watertight crates, stocked wooden logs and kept the fire burning in the little furnace they had in their room. There was always a leak somewhere, even if Darius had done his best to patch the roof, and so for every night of the monsoon the two of them would listen to the water dropping into a large basin that also served as a bathtub for the smaller children in the crèche-  _plink, plink, plink_.

Sometimes they did not even have wood for the furnace. On those nights, Darius would push their beds together and the two of them would sleep, back to back. Draven envied him, not only because his older brother always seemed to know what to do, but also because his brother also stayed warm like his father while  _he_  gradually grew colder if he wasn't covered by a suitable blanket.

Since his brother had gone to Boram's Point, however, Draven had found himself well and truly alone for the first time in his life because he was  _not_  allowed to see his brother at all, and he could not even send mail because, as the snooty-faced officials had told him, ' _Boram's Point prides itself on being able to give its officer-candidates a superior, combat-centered curriculum. Therefore the administrative staff cannot allow any disruptions to divert the candidates' attentions from their academic goals while inside the Academy_.'

Darius had lectured him for two months before he had left, and his teachings had been diverse and detailed: his advice ranged from a step-by-step guide on how to start a fire and how to cook his own food to tips on how to wash his own clothes and to sew up holes in his shirt. Darius had given his all in teaching Draven, even taking the eleven year old with him on a trip through the markets every Sunday and Wednesday, pointing out what was good to eat, how to cook it and then how to reuse it again if there were any leftovers. Certainly, if it was an actual award, the Older Brother of the Year medal would go to Darius.

But Draven was young, rather reckless and eleven years old: left alone to his own devices with a constant supply of money, he inevitably had spent most of his stipend on sweetmeats. If anyone bothered to ask him, he would say that it all started with the bags of candied walnuts he had seen in a store's display. He had bought one on a whim, and by the end of the day he had eaten through the whole bag and had discovered that he had a rather insatiable sweet tooth.

In the year since Darius had left, Draven had just about sampled every single kind of sweet available in the Noxian market, even taking a trip to the infamous Ivory Ward to purchase a dozen marzipan candies molded in the shape of fruits. Indeed, the floor was often littered with empty paper bags and crumpled waxed white paper candy wrappers, and the pantry doors remained open on a semi-permanent basis. In Draven's mind it was all money well-spent. If Darius had been there, the older Blood Brother probably would have beaten him within an inch of his life.

The three-roomed apartment that Draven now called home had been simple enough when Darius had bought it, and the older brother had considered it money well spent: the roof did not leak because the landlord was attentive; the warm red wallpaper was not peeling and the floorboards were made of a smooth and sturdy oak; the fully furnished rooms were lit up with runestone lanterns, and there was even a little black circular furnace next to the wall for heating; there was a flush toilet, which was a blessing considering that they had to make do with a bucket or a hole in the ground before; the boardinghouse itself was in Garnet Ward, a residential zone for those with middling incomes and a concern for entertainment in the form of the nearby Fleshing Arena.

Draven loved the Fleshing Arena- the money that didn't go into purchasing sweets and paying rent went into tickets for the bloodiest gladiatorial shows in all of Runeterra. He didn't know why he went there exactly. Watching people be torn apart by starved black panthers and desperate prisoners had lost its charm by the fifth repetition, and as a person whose parents had been executed he did not revel in the blood and in the gore.

No, what Draven liked to do was to sit in his seat, close his eyes and  _imagine_. With the crowds' deafening voices reverberating in his chest every time a gladiator managed to survive another wave of creatures, it was not at all hard to imagine  _them_  cheering for  _him_ , clapping their rough hands together, slamming their feet on the stone floor and chanting his name madly.

Was he being delusional? Certainly not, it was a healthy exercise for eleven year olds to daydream. Was he being narcissistic?  _Yes_ , and it would only get worse with time. Why was Draven so? Why did he have such a deep-seated urge to be noticed and to be known?

Having the most perfect older brother had its drawbacks after all- his parents had trusted Darius immensely. They had always taken  _him_  aside and had always excluded Draven from their plans. He knew he was still a child but he had always felt resentful, had always wanted to be so important to them  _too_.

In the way of youngest children who wanted nothing more than their parents'  **complete**  attention, Draven had always been the family fool. He loved it whenever his mother would take the time off her chores to interact with him, even if it was just to scold him. To catch his father's attention was a greater achievement, because Hystaspes was a calm reticent man who could have faced down a catapulted rock and not bat an eyelash if it just barely missed him by a few hairs.

Of course, since Darius was his father's favorite, his older brother only had to call the man's name and he would automatically turn his head, but Draven had to work  _significantly_  harder- at one point in time he had spent one hour pulling on the man's beard before the great lumberjack even glanced at him.

Every time his parents would pull their eyes away from their chores to notice him and every time Darius would react to his little pranks and his annoying noises and clichéd puns, Draven felt very much loved. Whenever they seemed to ignore him by talking to Darius or taking Darius out to learn more about the world, Draven felt very sad and alone.

The cruel irony in all of this, and Draven would realize it only later in his life, is that his parents had loved  _him_  so much so as to practically drill into Darius the importance of  _being_  an older brother. Much of the elder Blood Brother's life from his fourth birthday up until their execution was filled with nothing but endless lectures on how  _he_  had to be an example for the new baby, on how so-and-so was being sold off so that they would have more money to feed the two of them, on how  _he_  had to protect his brother because Draven was the youngest and Noxus was not kind at all.

His parents  _had_  their favorites- Hystaspes had seen much of himself in Darius and Athenais had doted on Draven because he was creative and was the last she had given birth to that had been born  _alive_ \- but neither one of their children realized it. Darius felt that both parents had loved Draven more, and Draven had felt that Darius was the only one that his parents had thought worthy to even talk to when it came to serious matters. It was a giant misunderstanding that would eventually culminate in a massive fight, but that would be in the future.

As of now, Draven was watching the dark clouds rumbling ominously from his bed by the windowsill. A grey veil seemed to have settled over Garnet Ward- the distant Fleshing Arena's silhouette was partially obscured from his eyes. There was a heavy metallic scent in the air that reached into his mouth- this first storm of the monsoon season would be a massive one for certain.

Draven found himself pulling a heavy blanket over his head and clutched it close to his chest as the first fork of lightning ran across the black skies like one of those dancers he had seen in between fights in the Fleshing Arena. Those street performers were the other reason why he went to the Fleshing Arena. In between fights, various troupes would dash out into the bloody sands and amuse the crowd. His favorite was a troupe of stateless gypsies who would dance on top of prancing horses and juggle flaming batons. He would always be on the edge of his seat as he counted the flaming sticks, following the progression hungrily:  _one, three, five, seven, twelve_ -!

He wanted, more than anything, to be like  _them_ \- to hear nothing but cheers and the words ' _more, more, more_ '-!

Thunder boomed in the distance, making such a heavy noise so as to fill his lungs with vibrations and shake dust from the rafters. Draven imagined each and every boom to be a massive, immeasurable crowd stomping their feet on the ground all at once, hollering a single word in monosyllabic tones that was absolutely awe-inspiring in its unanimity:  _Draven, Draven, Draven_.

With a colossal, incessant roar, heavy rain fell from the skies and blanketed everyone in cold. Draven closed his eyes and rocked himself back and forth; weaving his head from side to side like a virtuoso piano player would while playing a difficult but rewarding piece. The sound of drops hitting the slate roofs he imagined to be the impatient patter of footsteps as they rushed to greet him; the gurgle of water pouring through drainpipes he interpreted to be the throaty cheers of his admirers.

When he opened his eyes, Draven did not see Garnet Ward under the grip of the worst monsoon to hit in three years. He saw a sea of nondescript faces, calling for him, screaming his name.

Like any good performer, he stood up, throwing off his blanket and giving off his best smile as he flexed nonexistent muscles and jumped out of bed. The temperature in the room had plummeted, and his breath was coming out in wisps. Stuck in his fantasy world, Draven pulled a log from a nearby pile, juggling it in the air as he had seen his idols do in the Fleshing Arena.  _One, two, three_ \- and he threw those into the open doors of the furnace. He splashed it a bit with lamp oil and set it on fire, jumping from heel to heel all the while, and then slammed the door of the furnace shut.

Draven did a cartwheel, failing miserably because he was not at all flexible, but he was in a land filled with admirers and every single crack of thunder that reverberated through his chest and his skull he interpreted as an encouraging cheer. He pulled candles from the monsoon survival kit that Darius had so meticulously packed for him, juggling them in the air:  _one, three, five_ -!

And then he slipped on his blanket and fell on the floor. All five candles plummeted down and hit him on the head. Thus pulled from his fantasy world, the eleven year old made a pained noise as he rubbed ruefully at the top of his head and stared out at the window. The rain had gotten thick enough to obscure his view of the Fleshing Arena completely- monsoon season was upon them all.

Draven wondered then, if his brother was seeing the rain too.

Certainly, Darius was  _seeing_  the rain. In fact, he was  _feeling_  it too. The heavy freezing shower was beating an asymmetric rhythm into his skin. His breath came out in clouds and every movement made his muscles scream from exhaustion but he did not want to rest- not yet at least.

"Of course, let's _not_ work hard." Di Castellamonte croaked sarcastically over the pouring rain and distant thunder. "Let's not expend any effort, _really_. There is no point to giving your best, especially after a year and five hours of preparing for this very moment, isn't there?"

 _Has it already been five hours?_  His exhausted mind asked blearily.

Their day had started out at an already hectic, almost feverish pace. When Chief di Castellamonte had informed them that the Crucible would begin today, Varinius had been silently transferred out. They had been herded like cattle into the bathroom, soaked through by instructors using buckets and then forced outside. Hounded by Strongbow and the rest of the instructors, Dominance joined all the other companies on a massive trail that wound around the grounds of Boram's Point.

They must have been quite a sight to see then- hundreds of men and a smattering of women jogging in their nightclothes, ignoring the choking dust of the road and the complaints of stomachs still empty. Somehow, the instructors had managed to acquire horses, and the screams in the back column only added to every candidate's motivation to run faster than the person next to them: evidently, those that could not run any longer fell to the earth and were trampled by iron-clad hooves.

After completing one circuit, the companies had been split up again. Dominance had been herded through a narrow trail and into a valley where a sluggish brown river was making its way into the earth. Delicate mist rose from the chasm, and it was quite a beautiful sight. There, at the very edge of the churning ravine, the instructors pushed them into pre-determined positions and let them stand for ten minutes in the welcome spray.

Chief di Castellamonte had walked in front of them after their little breather, bending the riding crop in her hands as she shouted above the noise of the waterfall behind her. "Eons ago, the first Noxian warriors fought for leadership at this place. Those who wished to be chief would find the strongest person in their clan, and then they would challenge that man or woman in single combat, without weapons and without magic, grappling until their foe was cold and dead beneath their fingers."

And then the dark clouds overhead had decided to let loose their watery burden, soaking them through again in an aching chill that seemed to reach into their very bones. Chief di Castellamonte had been unfazed as she continued over the booming thunder, her features highlighted by the lightning that raced overhead and struck a nearby tree, setting it on fire. "Warrior-children, the person to your right is your strongest foe. If you wish to see the light of the sun on the morrow, you must kill him in single combat, without the use of weapons and magic. No quarter must be given, not even to our fellow men, and if  _you_  do not kill  _them_  by the end of this day,  _we_  will kill  _you_."

Darius had stared at Hawklight then, his mouth slightly slack in shock. Hawklight was one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the entire company, and the older man had sent his face into the sand of the Pit more than once. Fear had taken a hold of his heart then, because he honestly did not know if he could have taken Hawklight on. He would have stood frozen for a second longer, but Senior Instructor Krieg-Windsor's fist suddenly collided with his chest, and Darius had keeled over with a grunt, swallowing to hold back the bile that was running up his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Assistant Instructor Strongbow knock Hawklight off his feet.

"Fight, you maggots!" Krieg-Windsor had boomed at them as Darius straightened up just in time to dodge Hawklight's fist. "Fight or I will crush your skulls together!"

All  _that_  had been five hours ago. There had been as many as fifty pairs next to the gorge, but now it had whittled down to a pitiful three. The survivors of the melee were standing at attention off to the side, unable to move on without the last three victors. The bodies of the dead candidates were still on the field, and the remaining fighters had tripped over the corpses more than once. In all actuality, there would be more bodies on the ground if the instructors had not thrown three pairs over the edge of the gorge because the candidates had given up.

Darius didn't know how many blows they had exchanged, didn't care if Hawklight seemed to always come out on top- all he knew was that he could not afford to give up, could not afford to  _stop_. No matter how many times the man hit him; Darius had always gotten back up, compartmentalizing his hunger, pain and exhaustion with dogged tenacity. He could tell that the pouring rain, long run and lack of breakfast were taking its toll on the older man.

Hawklight staggered towards him like a drunken zombie, his front and sides caked with clumps of dirt. The rain had turned the earth underneath their feet into sucking mud, and everyone but the Chief Instructor herself had fallen victim to it- one of the other fighters had been flipped into the muck so many times that only the whites of his eyes and his teeth stood out from the black that covered him, and even Strongbow's water resistant poncho was flecked with it, but  _she_  was absolutely clean.

Her oilskin coat was zipped up to her neck and her peaked cap resisted the rain like an umbrella as she howled insults at a candidate who was lying face-down in the mud, her mysteriously clean boot digging the man's head further into the viscous earth. The man flailed and panicked underneath her, and she kicked at his chest constantly until he managed to physically lift himself from the ground and crawl towards his chosen opponent with an enviable persistence.

For the nth time that day, the wind was blown out of his lungs as Hawklight slammed into him bodily, sending the both of them tumbling to the earth. The mud cushioned their fall somewhat, but then Hawklight was on top of him and the rain was pounding into his skull. Time seemed to slow down. Sounds seemed to be coming from far away. Blinded by flying flecks of earth, Darius punched and kicked wildly. There was a sudden pain by his side and it was with difficulty that he realized the Chief had moved on to better targets- like the son of her former lover.

"You're a big man, candidate." And he suppressed the urge to lash at her when she slammed her heel onto his calf- he had Hawklight to worry about. "Why don't you stop being  _kind_  and just snap Hawlight's neck? You have it in you."

Hawklight was pawing at his throat madly, trying to choke him, trying to  _end_  him. Desperately, Darius took a hold of the candidate's shirt in one hand and used the other to push himself off the earth. Despite the blows that Hawklight dealt him, Darius found himself giving a primal roar as he lifted the other man clear off the ground.

A sharp trail of pain flared along his side- the Chief was whipping him with her riding crop, goading him on. Still roaring, he threw Hawklight down on the ground and fell on top of him, closing his hands about the man's throat, feeling the frantic pulse underneath his palms. Hawklight stared up at him with the desperation of a man who knew that he was about to die, slapping feebly at his forearms and his face, kicking with his legs and making subdued noises in his throat. As the rain poured down his back, Darius pushed his weight forward and clenched his hands tightly, holding on until Hawklight's eyes rolled into his head and his struggles finally ceased.

"Go," Chief di Castellamonte's voice said to him. Darius stood up mechanically, breathing heavily and shivering as he moved off to join the rest of the victors. Time seemed to resume its normal pace. Sounds normalized in his ears. As he stood at attention with the rest, he saw the Chief place two fingers on Hawklight's neck, feeling for a pulse. Evidently, she had discovered a weak throb, because she pulled out a knife and slit his throat. He couldn't see the blood that bubbled up like spring water- the mud and the pouring rain took care of that.

Chief di Castellamonte flicked her blade and let the rain wash it clean before she slipped it back into its sheathe. As the last two exhausted fighters fell into ranks, she strode in front of them again and regarded them all with a pleased expression on her face.

"Well done, warrior-children," She said to them, as if all they had done was clean their rooms or make her something nice to eat. As if they had not just fought a person they had practically lived with for the past year, as if they had not just snuffed out a life. "Now, you may partake of your morning meal. I will expect you all to be battle ready by two o'clock this afternoon."

After a year of being conditioned to fight to the very end, to dominate others without mercy, to overcome trials without regret, Darius found that he felt nothing after the man's death, and he remembered nothing except for the feel of Hawklight's throat under his hands, his pulse quickening like a rabbit's shortly before he had died.

As they filed into the mess hall, he could see the other companies also, and when the rafters would have been echoing back their excited chatter, there was only the sound of silverware scraping against ceramic plates, of mugs being lifted to dry mouths and dull faces. He counted every missing seat, and as he received his morning meal, he realized that more than a quarter of the candidates had perished.

They returned to their longhouse like clockwork machines, halfheartedly shrugging into clothes that seemed to no longer fit. Darius could see Keiran biting his lip as Darkwill's youngest buttoned up his own uniform, a large bruise forming about his eye. Seamus was not any better- the veteran seemed to be favoring one side as he leaned down and tied his boots. Lazare de Richelieu somehow managed to remain, and he was passed out in his bunk, his uniform half-done. For Darius' part, every movement pained him. Like the rest of Dominance Company, as soon as he had finished fixing his uniform, he crawled pitifully into his bunk and tried to sleep.

When Darius came to, it was still raining heavily outside, and the sky had grown so dark that he initially thought that he had overslept for the next phase of the Crucible. As it was, he realized it was almost two o'clock from the watch that another candidate had hung on their bunk. Darius swung his legs over, grimacing as his muscles screamed at him to stop. He held his breath as he pushed himself out of his small bed, and then struggled to stand at attention as the doors burst open yet again.

"Outside, now." Krieg-Windsor's tone brooked no argument. The exhausted candidates slung on rucksacks filled with supplies, picked up their personal weapons and rushed outside, automatically forming ranks as they did so. Chief di Castellamonte was standing next to Instructor Strongbow, waiting for them. She was still so spotless and vigorous, whereas Strongbow was somewhat covered in mud and looked to be fighting back a yawn.

There was another man next to her, dressed in green robes trimmed with yellow embroidery, armor plates on his front and on his shoulders. He had a sullen look to him, as if he did not like to be outside. The rain seemed to curve around him and he remained dry where everyone else was being pelted by freezing rain- a barrier of some sort?

"Warrior-children," She greeted them all with a nod of her head- she seemed pleased that all of them had obeyed her orders to be battle ready. "Welcome to the second phase of your first day in the Crucible. This is Summoner Gareth, of no particular House."

Darius stared at him blankly, wondering what sort of trial the instructors had in store for them all this time, bracing himself for whatever challenge she would give them, all the while privately fearing whatever magic the man would bring to bear against him.

"Summoner Gareth is an expert in the creation of constructs, that is, creatures bought to life by magic that thrive off sacrifices of human blood." And Chief di Castellamonte's mouth was set in a thin, humorless smile. "We all fear what we do not know. It is human nature to do so, and there is nothing more mysterious and more perplexing than  _magic_. An infantryman's worst fear is the sting of a spell, and a mage's worst fear is to see the silver of a blade. In order to strike fear into your foes, you must first overcome fear personified. Summoner Gareth's constructs will feed off your terrors, producing monsters straight from your very soul."

Darius stiffened imperceptibly, but he knew that the Chief was watching him. He was one of many in the Company who did not deal in magic, and because of his trauma he did not even want to see or  _feel_  magic. He could survive five hours of nonstop hand-to-hand combat, but to be hunted by some magical creature created from his own deepest fears? He was torn then, between giving in to his phobia and his determination to survive and to succeed. If he did give in to his cowardice, it would invalidate everything his parents had done for him, would be spitting in Chief di Castellamonte's eye. If he faced the construct- he only hoped that he had the strength inside him to overcome his dread.

"You have your packs. You have your weapons. Work alone. I will give you three days." And she held up her gloved hand, showing them her three raised fingers. "Three days to hunt down your constructs before they find  _you_. Find them, destroy them, and bring back their magical cores. If you do not come back, we will consider you as dead. If you come to me without a core, I will slit your throat. Let this be a lesson to you all: return successful or do not return at all."

* * *

**Author's Note:**  Okay, I lied. It's not that awkward. Maybe in two chapters.  _Anyway_. I thought the use of constructs was thoroughly appropriate here- prior to the formation of the League, we  _are_  told that magic was wrecking havoc on Runeterra and that there really were  _no_  rules.

Noxus being Noxus, I wouldn't put it past them to use magic against their own people to make them tougher- in this case, utilizing constructs to whittle down officer-candidates to those who know how to face their fears. And come on, Sion and Urgot.  _Necromancy_. Making scary illusions is absolutely nothing compared to  _that_.

That would certainly explain why Noxians seem to be range from pragmatic and ruthless to outright berserk and reckless- once you've had the shit scared out of you, everything else seems to pale in comparison.


	14. Fight, Overcome or Die

_I closed my lids, and kept them close,_

_And the balls like pulses beat;_

_For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky_

_Lay dead like a load on my weary eye,_

_And the dead were at my feet._

_The cold sweat melted from their limbs,_

_Nor rot nor reek did they:_

_The look with which they looked on me_

_Had never passed away._

_An orphan's curse would drag to hell_

_A spirit from on high;_

_But oh! more horrible than that_

_Is the curse in a dead man's eye!_

_Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,_

_And yet I could not die._

**The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part IV (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)**

* * *

**THREE DAYS LATER…**

When Nocturne was first introduced into the Fields of Justice, summoners and champions did not know how to react to him. The summoners had heard the stories, had known that Nocturne had killed many of their kind- the most infamous tale made him a nightmare personified, a thing of terror that had no purpose other than to slaughter the unwary and to torment the psyches of those who bent the very pillars of nature to their will. The champions had found the Eternal Nightmare to be both perplexing and terrifying- a caged animal that howled at them with white froth flying from its metaphorical lips. They, like their summoners, succumbed to their fears when they felt Nocturne tether into their subconscious, tainting their realities with an Unspeakable Horror.

Far off into the future, summoners would talk of Nocturne, and of the emotions that they felt from their linked champions as Nocturne tethered into their psyche. There were plenty of tales where both summoner and champion had felt the insane urge to flee in whatever direction possible- in the most humorous version, Ezreal had shifted into the Baron Pit and was ‘killed’ while his summoner plowed into a wall and broke his nose- but the most infamous stories were that of certain Noxian champions and their reactions to the tether.

As Nocturne burrowed into their shared consciousness, the summoners had expected pulses of terror and pain from their Noxian champions. Sion’s summoners shared that they had felt nothing but giddy excitement. Urgot’s summoners would shake their collective head and state that their champion had only sent feelings of amused derision. Cassiopeia’s summoners reported a blazing indignation, whilst Katarina would only send feelings of cold scorn. Darius’ summoners would say that the Hand of Noxus broadcasted nothing but white noise, but their shared link had made the man run anyway- some would waste their Flash while others would have him plowing straight into a tree.

Was Darius fearless then? He was not.

No one is truly _fearless_ , after all, because fear is nothing but a basic response to stimuli. It is simply the ability to perceive incoming danger, and decision-making boils down to the rather basic choice of fight or flight. People who are seen as fearless are people who are able to make decisions under immense psychological pressure, who have the rather enviable ability to keep their minds and command their bodies. Like mastering a technique by repeating it over and over until ones’ muscles remember it better than one’s mind, to master one’s fear towards something is to face it, over and over, to temper oneself against the irrationalities of the body and to maintain one’s thoughts.

What was the reason behind the Noxians’ bizarre responses then? Why did it seem as if they felt any emotion _other than_ fear?

In their pursuit of true strength, Noxians inevitably discovered the frustrating barrier that was fear, but they did not study it, as the Piltoverians did. They did not philosophize or meditate about it, as the Ionians did. They did not cling to the written word, as the Demacians did. With typical Noxian stubbornness, they simply threw themselves at whatever scared them until they repelled, dominated or outright destroyed it with their bare fists, physically and metaphorically- and only the Rakkor and the tribe of the Winter’s Claw would truly understand _why_ it was necessary to use one’s _fists_.

There is, after all, nothing more satisfying than overcoming a challenging task without outside aid.

The Magic Phase of the Crucible was and still is the Academy’s answer to fear, and that phase is the primary reason _why_ the tuition fee of Boram’s Point reached astronomical levels- not every school could call upon the services of a summoner, and it certainly is not a simple matter to conjure controllable horrors to torment only a select few.

Given the massive number, one could probably buy a home within Ivory Ward and fully furnish it also, but in the minds of Noxian parents’, enrollment and acceptance into the infamous Academy would be the best investment that they could possibly make to improve the lives of their children. To a true Noxian, the ability to control one’s fear is worth more than a new house, more than fifty new dresses or a diamond-encrusted coat.

Of course, immigrants like Conrad would snidely state that a cheaper solution exists: rather than torment candidates with monsters created from their psyches, a psychiatrist and some three weeks spent in analysis would suffice. Of course, the opinion of immigrants in Noxus is given as much weight and respect as a fly buzzing about one’s face. That is to say, if the fly ever became too noisy or too insistent, the fly would be crushed under a massive book, de-winged by a curious and sadistic child _or_ de-winged _and_ _then_ crushed under a massive book.

At higher ranks, the summoners who had been given the privilege of connecting with Darius himself instead of his conjured mimic would keep their mouths shut instead of joining the rest of their fellows in swapping stories- not only because they were under oath to never speak of his past, but because they would find themselves back in a decadent barren forest inundated with freezing rain, taking the point of view of a youth who crouched inside a cave for hours on end, ignoring the dull aches of his muscles and joints and struggling against the heavy veil of exhaustion as he watched his surroundings intensely. It would be with a mortified shiver that they would remember his horrifying task, and the sickening, _twisted_ monstrosity that his deep-seated anxieties had conjured.

As far as anxieties went, Darius did not regret the loss of more than thirty other candidates in his company- clearly, they did not have the raw physical strength required. He did not feel bad about throttling Hawklight to death with his bare hands- there could only have been one victor, after all. What ate at him was his constant worry for his younger brother, the mentally exhausting and still somewhat perplexing decision he had made the night before to willingly haze another candidate so soon after his own traumatic experience, and the fact that he was being hunted by a magical nightmare come to life.

He had made the decision two days ago to simply sit and wait for his hunter to find _him_. It was not an act of sloth, nor was it an act of cowardice. The sad truth of the matter was that he did not know much about hunting anything outside of laying traps for absurdly large rats, and he felt that he would have a fighting chance if he faced his hunter at a place of his choosing.

His hunting skills would remain rather appalling even as an adult- in all actuality, it would only get worse because of his armor and his full growth. Eventually Rengar the Pridestalker would laugh at the Hand of Noxus for ‘ _stomping through the Rift like a fool, announcing your presence to all, even the deaf and the blind_ ’ and Leesin, for all his resentment towards Noxus, never could hold in his own laughter whenever he was within earshot.

The cave he was sitting in was not much, especially considering his own bulk. He was forced to bend over at some points and spent most of his time crouched or on his knees. He had chosen this particular cavern because it was not very long- twenty paces and he would hit the very end of it- and because the rains had not stopped falling since it had started three days ago.

At least food and water were not in short supply- he did nothing but wait so the dried rations in his pack served his purposes well enough, and because of a fissure in the ceiling he was able to cup rainwater in his hands and take his fill without much trouble. The cold was ever present, but it helped that he could maintain a fire at the back of the cave. There was no problem with relieving himself either, because it either joined the rest of the murk or floated off somewhat defiantly. No, his real problem was that he had time to _think_ , and even though his father had warned him against fixating on _what could have beens,_ he could not help but run his mind over possibilities in between catching minute naps.

When left alone to his own devices, Draven would be doing what he pleased. When Darius was left alone, he brooded. Eventually, someone would tell him that he agonized over his memories worse than a prepubescent girl, and he would not react angrily because he knew that the jab was well-founded. Running through his mental map, grimacing at every single mistake he saw, wondering if something could have been averted, speculating over choices he could have made, _if_ he should have made them- brooding was an annoying habit he hated to do.

Sitting at the cave mouth with his axe cradled in his lap, Darius had been thinking if he should have just decided to hunt the creature instead of penning himself up in a hole in the ground. It was the morning of the third day, and he knew that if he did not get the core he needed, he would be killed. As Darius tried not to think about how it was going to be his fault _again_ , he noticed that the fire had gone out- there was no welcome glow on the walls anymore, and the air had suddenly become very cold. Gripping the axe in one hand, he turned and made the slow crawl to the back of the cave.

It was very dark- the sun was obscured by rain, and when the fire was out, only way he could tell that he had reached the end of the cave was when he reached the count of twenty and banged his nose into the back wall. He had made it to fifteen before his sleeve had caught on something underwater, and he pulled at it until he practically smacked himself in the face- the cloth had given way with a subtle tearing noise and momentum had carried his fist towards his head.

“Piece of shit,” The youth who would become the Hand of Noxus rubbed at his cheek ruefully. He pushed his head down and crawled on, but he didn’t even make it to twenty before his face collided with something cold. He blinked and looked up- the face of Alexander de Croix smiled back at him. The man seemed… wrong, somehow. His face was sagging, nigh greenish in places, as if his decaying skin did not fit over his skull. His eyes were pitch black and were not at all unlike marbles set into hollow sockets.

“ _Heeello, littleeee savageeee_.” Alexander de Croix’s voice was long-drawn, seemingly made of a thousand other tiny voices speaking at the same time. As the corpse-face opened its mouth in front of him, Darius did not see the soft pinkish tissues of a healthy mouth and gums. He could see nothing but a thousand gleaming eyes and gnashing pincers as a putrid heavy scent forced its way into his nose and made him gag. The man was made of  _bugs_.

“ **Shit**!” Darius found himself shouting in the thing’s face as he hastily backed out of the cave, his axe held in a white-knuckled grip. He _knew_ that the thing in front of him was his hunter, knew that he had to stand and fight, but the impulse to run was too overwhelming. “ **SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT**!”

“ _Running away will do you no good, littleeee savageeee_.” Alexander seemed to melt down from the ceiling of the cave, landing on the moist earth with a wet plop. His body was not humanoid- it was a gigantic, constantly shifting mass of insects that vaguely resembled a centipede. It was not even a single kind of insect- he could see black beetles, pigment bugs, brown worms, sickly white grubs and brown termites among others wiggling inside, and as he backed out into the freezing rain, he thought he could see the faint outline of a blood-darkened skeleton before the creatures rallied against it and buried it deep.

As his last meal tumbled out of his mouth and fell into the flood about his knees, he stared flabbergasted as flies flew out of the corpse face’s mouth and nose. Tiny limbs wiggled underneath the flesh mask to give Alexander de Croix’s face a stomach-turning smile.

 _“You areeee so afraid. I can tasteeee it in the air. I will eeeenjoy savoring your corpseeee_.” The corpse-face said to him. Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the overcast clouds, maybe it was because he felt sick, maybe it was because he had not slept much or because the thing in front of him were his deepest nightmare come to life- his breath seemed to come out in clouds as the very colors of the world around him seemed to dim to nothing but shades of grey.

 _Shit, shit, **shit**. **Move, move, move!**_ Darius screamed mentally, wanting to do _something_ but his legs would just not obey him and his shaking hands were still gripping his axe. He stood rooted in his place as the centipede crept closer, its massive bulk seemed to hide the very sky as it loomed over him and tittered madly in glee. He choked back the urge to vomit again as the dead smell grew stronger, permeating through his clothing and clawing into his eyes.

“ _Wee shall rid you of your troubleesomeee lifeee._ _Your guilt- so palpable. Your feeeear, so delicious_.”  Alexander de Croix’s maddened smile was grossly exaggerated thanks to the constantly pulsating bodies of the insects underneath. It was over him now, covering him from the rain but- and he realized this when he thought he saw raindrops fall past- that it was _salivating_ over him with the gaping hungry mouths billion crawling things. “ _What a prizeee, a candidateee with such eexpeeerieeeencees, such meeemorieeees_. _Your failureeee  will beee my reeeeeward_.“

 _Oh fuck **, oh fuck, OH FUCK** -_ The world seemed to shrink around his ears as the warmth ebbed from his blood. Darius slowly looked down at the axe in his hand. Dimly, he realized he was shaking so hard that his knees practically had locked. The knuckles and veins on his hand stood out sharply against his clammy skin.

 _I’m going to die,_ He thought to himself with sudden clarity. _I’m going to die and I haven’t even used my axe yet._

The corpse-face moved closer, almost touching his forehead. Insects screamed in his ears as they ran a predetermined path, moving on top of each other to form a new shape. It was not a centipede now- it resembled the carving of Death he had seen in the Cathedral all those days ago- hooded, with great skeletal hands reaching out to pluck his head from his shoulders.

 _I can’t die,_ he objected piteously _. I can’t die, I can’t die, I can’t die._

He looked up into Alexander de Croix’s decomposing face, could see each and every skittering thing creeping underneath and the greenish and sickly veins drawn like melted wax against pallid and dead flesh. It was so close now that the dead smell made his throat contract again.  

 ** _MOVE, PIECE OF SHIT-_** Self-pity made way for bitter anger as he railed at himself. **_MOVE, MOVE, MOVE_** _-!_

“ _Weeeeak, so weeeeak.”_ Darius could still see the multitude of eyes staring at him, glowing pale white and illuminating the sickening pallor of the corpse face. There were things on his clothes. He could feel their legs crawling over his skin, could hear their chittering in his ears. “ _Goodbyeee, littleee savageee.”_

 _I can’t die-_ The mental mantra grew to a final desperate and angry scream. He threw everything he had into **moving,** into doing _something,_ summoning up elusive courage and determination in the face of something that frightened him to his very **core**. _I can’t die. I can’t die. **I WON’T DIE. I WON’T DIE** -_

He could feel the tiny jaws on his skin before he found himself in control again. Desperately, he managed to push his arms up, hacking away at the thing in front of him madly. His initial strokes were largely ineffectual, but it had its desired effect. The corpse-face screamed- spitting bugs into his face- as it recoiled away from the axe blade.

“I won’t die.” Darius snarled at it as he hefted the axe in his hands and wished it wasn’t raining. The thing was slipping from his cold wet hands. “I won’t die here.”

“ _Beegging_!” The corpse-face barked at him in its thousand-insect voice as it reformed into a large roiling scorpion with absurdly large claws.  “ _Beegging! How **fun**_!”

“Shut up!” He howled at it as he pushed through the water, slamming the flat of his axe into its Alexander de Croix’s face like a boy would use a bat. Mortified, he watched as the man’s face literally flew off and landed into the murky waters.

“ _You didn’t likeee that faceeee_?” The roiling mass screeched at him with a million little voices. “ _Littleee savageee, would this faceee suit your neeeeeeds_?”

Like a worm peeking out of the ground, the thing in front of him regurgitated a half-eaten corpse, lifting it above the black insect mass. Most of the limbs had been picked into ribbons. Shreds of muscle clung to yellowed joints. Soft dark-brown organs spilled from gaps in the chest cavity.

What made him give a choking dry heave and a noise of anguish was that the face was still so _intact_ , and it was the face of his mother- her mouth was moving but he could see the bubbles coming from her throat, knew that was where Urgot had cleaved her head from her shoulders. He gave a strangled sob as she opened her eyes and looked at _him,_ blaming _him_ -

“You killed me.” She said in _that_ voice he had always held dear, and he could feel himself coming apart.

 ** _NO, NO, NO!_**  He mentally screamed against his guilt. _No, that’s not real, that’s not real at all._

“Stop it.” Darius snarled, and he lifted his axe and threw his weight into his next blow. His skin suddenly grew hot and feverish, invigorating him against the cold and the grey world that the thing had managed to call down.

His mother’s head tumbled from her half-eaten shoulders, falling against his face and covering him with a trail of warmth. ‘ _My darling boy, my light’-_ her last words echoed as her head fell down into the waters about his knees and he bit back an instinctive sob.

“ _You killeeed your own motheeer_!” The insect-mass screeched at him.

“She died for me, and I buried her!” Howling in anguish like a wounded wolf, he hacked away at her decaying corpse until the rest of her was consumed in the darkness of churning insect bodies.

He stared up now at the half-chewed corpse that was his father, and Hystaspes’ great hulking mass seemed to have been thrown into a meat grinder and then spat out abruptly. He could see bloody bones jutting out of places- some whole, some snapped- could see the oozing blood mixing with the rain. As before, his father’s face was still hauntingly, _painfully_ perfect- as if the man was in front of him right now, staring down at him, his great bushy beard hanging off his chin like a shroud of moss.

“You disappoint me.” His father’s voice was still as he had remembered it.

Darius didn’t know that he was screaming again, didn’t feel anything as he threw himself at the beast, regardless of the danger that the millions of jaws would have posed to him. As he cut into the mutilated body of his father, he didn’t see the man’s arms curl about him in the mockery of an embrace, pulling him closer inside and pressing him against the hungry jaws of the carrion bugs.

A thousand tiny cuts opened along his face and his arms, and Darius closed his eyes involuntary as he seemed to burn alive in his own skin. Still, he resisted the urge to draw back in fear, to stop. He was still hacking desperately away at the gruesome mimic when the two of them fell into the churning black waters.

Suddenly, the colors of the world returned in dirt black, moss green and mud brown as sharp branches and rocks pummeled at his body. All around him, billions of little insect teeth and legs scraped against his skin, nipping into his flesh when they could before they too were swept by the torrent.

Darius tried to find his bearings, tried to push his head above the flood, but the insect thing was there, holding him under in emaciated claws that formed and reformed constantly. He tried his best to stay calm and to hold in his breath, remembering the sea phase and tried not to think about the fact that he **Could. Not. Swim**.

Panic made his heart beat fast but Darius urged himself to remain calm. He extended his axe in desperation and it caught on something, sending shocks up his right arm and possibly even wrenching it out of its socket.  At the price of shredding his skin, he pulled himself up along his own axe, praying that it would not dislodge from whatever thing it had latched on to.

Gradually, Darius found that he was above the flood, creeping on top of a slippery but crevice-ridden rock. Coughing out water, his gasps for air came in too fast, and he tried to regulate his breathing as the rain washed over his fevered skin and cooled him down.

Utterly exhausted and bleeding from a multitude of wounds and what else, he lay back on the rock, tried not to aggravate his right arm and stared up at the pouring rain and the overcast skies. His throat hurt, his breath still came in short bursts, his heart wanted to just jump out of his throat, his entire body was aching horribly and bleeding and his arm was at a rather strange angle.

High pitched wails filled the air as Darius felt scrabbling tiny limbs on his leg. He looked down to see the amalgamation again, clawing up at him, scrambling and trying to reform from the pouring flood to consume him. It was with a sense of detachment that Darius realized that there was a curiously shining pearl in what he took to be its throat or its chest.

 _The Core. I need that_. Darius had to mentally remind himself, because he felt worn down to his very soul and all he wanted was to simply close his eyes and sleep. He felt numb and dead as he kicked at the screeching thing, staring at it vacantly until it fell back into the water and dissolved into nothing.

The pearl was bouncing halfway down the rock face before Darius realized that he had to grab it, and when he did dive after it he only hurt himself further with his sudden abrupt action, but at least it was safe in his good hand.

He pulled himself back up the rock and stared down at the little thing in his palm, marveling at the comforting heat that emanated from the perfect sphere. He wondered how he could possibly get back to the longhouse now, if he even still could go back. It was the third day after all. He knew he was still somewhere in the grounds, but he didn’t know _where_ exactly. If he was going to get the Core back to Summoner Gareth, he knew he had to get off the rock and brave the flood again.

The pearl glimmered in front of him, still radiating that disturbing welcome warmth, and it was with a familiar sense of dread that Darius realized it was _healing_ him. At any other point in time, he would have dropped it, but he was worn-out, in pain and too psychologically exhausted to even complain, so he merely lowered his head as he heard his bones snap back into place and felt every single cut disappear. As soon as it finished- and it had turned into a dull black color that seemed to _eat_ light by then- he tried to put it into his satchel.

Darius almost dropped it back into the floodwaters around him. Dimly, he looked down at himself and discovered his satchel didn’t survive the flood. His clothes weren’t any better- in some places they were little more than worn down rags clinging to his frame. His axe was still jammed underneath the bubbling flood. His rucksack had been left in the cave.

The relieved laughter that bubbled from his chest was tainted with misery.

When Darius finally managed to make it back to the longhouse, the rain had stopped and the ground underneath his feet had turned into viscous, sucking mud. He had backtracked to retrieve his rucksack and spare uniform, silently thanking the mountain phase for teaching him how to keep his head even through mental exhaustion.

Darius had let the Core drop into Summoner Gareth’s hands, hollowly greeting Chief di Castellamonte a good evening as he did so. She had taken one look at him- drinking in the hollows underneath his eyes, his slack jaw, unruly hair, bedraggled uniform and slow movements- and had smiled as if he had just run a marathon for her.

“Tomorrow brings a new task, candidate.” She had said. He had stared at her vacantly before he remembered that he should not, and then clapped his fist to his chest in salute before she had dismissed him.

Shambling into the longhouse, it occurred to him very slowly that Dominance Company’s numbers had thinned yet again- there were only fifty of them now, down from some two hundred hopefuls. Lazare de Richelieu was gone, but Seamus and Keiran Darkwill were still there. The latter seemed to be like him, all stare and no movement at all, but the former was humming a rough sea shanty under his breath as he fixed his things.

“You’re oddly pleased with yourself.” Darius found himself saying hoarsely, watching the older man work with detached interest.

“I got a free healing spell.” Seamus replied over his shoulder.

“Me too.” Darius replied bemusedly.

“You too?” The veteran blinked and looked at him carefully. “You don’t fucking look it.”

“I don’t?” The younger man echoed.

“You look like a fucking shitstain.” Seamus supplied eloquently.

“Oh.” Darius replied vacantly, feeling too tired to even think of a good enough insult to fire back at him.

“Can’t fucking deal with the strain huh?” The veteran chuckled at him knowingly. "What a piss-poor schmuck.”

Darius lowered his rucksack next to his bunk, leaning against the post as he looked at Seamus. “What strain?” He asked dumbly.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Seamus pointed out. “You fucking retarded asshole.”

“ _Nothing_?” Darius blinked in surprise.

“You just got healed, so you shouldn’t even _be_ tired.” The veteran snorted as he rolled his eyes at an obvious fact only he could comprehend. “What a retard. I'm surrounded by fucking idiots.”

It just occurred to him then that the veteran was right, and it was with shame that he remembered feeling like this exactly when he woke up in the infirmary after Alexander de Croix had broken his bones repeatedly. Conrad had said then that he _was_ fine, there really was _nothing_ to treat- but he had sulked like a child and had ignored the man entirely. His mind was still dealing with the events of the day, but he _felt_ fine- so why wasn’t he _fine_?

“I shouldn’t.” Darius repeated stupidly as he realized that his mind and his body were not on the same page, and the moment the younger man said it the veteran gave a great bark of laughter as he walked off- evidently he didn’t want to waste his time with _him_.

What most people on Runeterra do not realize is that healing is not an end-all solution to one’s problems. Certainly, one can heal grievous physical injuries but unless one’s mind is fully _prepared_ , there is a tendency for the brain to be disconnected from the body. Healing spells close wounds, soothe tired muscles and bring back energy in one’s step, but the human mind is a fickle thing, and it will still believe that it is still tired and utterly worn down even if the body is ready to run through another gauntlet of pain. And what plagues the mind eventually plagues the body. Even if there really is nothing wrong with the latter, the former would make it difficult to do anything- _mind over matter_ , as the saying went.

Those who know how to deal with the mind-body discrepancy are able to heal or be healed without much trouble. Master Yi, the Wuju Blademaster and Leesin, the Blind Monk, would excel at this- thanks in part due to their meditative techniques, they would be able to have their mind _recognize_ that their bodies were well and they would be able to fight for days on end, never wavering, never giving in to the plague of creeping mental exhaustion.

Darius sank into his bunk, massaging his temples as he tried to think. He was _fine_. He was not tired at all. He had gone through this before, and had given in to his weak mind. He tried now to listen to his body instead, to feed off the energy that he should have known he had.

Relief did not come quickly- it would take some years before he could fully shrug off the mental strain that would come with consecutive healing spells- but the small glimmer of strength that he had managed to wean from himself made him feel _better_.

Despite having faced an unspeakable horror that day, when he slept in his bunk that night, he did not dream.

* * *

**Author's Note:** It's always eaten away  at me how magic and technology could possibly co-exist in Runeterra. I mean, okay, let's run it down off the top of my head: we've got gas-based Hextech/techmaturgy, which essentially is technology powered by ecological magic from Piltover/Zaun, and then we've got the whole crystal tech/magic line from Jayce and Skarner's lore.

So you either haveeee no big surprise, the power of nature (I'm looking at you, Chevron) or the power of truly, truly outrageous gems (Final Fantasy CRYSTAL ENERGY HORY GOD).

How the hell does anything work? Is it anything like AC/DC? 'Oh no you can't use that blender, it's crystal powered. Go find your natural gas blender'?

What also makes me wring my hands in frustration is that on the Fields of Justice, you've got people with techmaturgical devices running around like Caitlyn, and then you've got the immortal/???? beings like Kassadin and Aatrox with their own magical/???? weapons and then you've got dudes like Darius who run around with plain weapons.

If the entirety of Runeterra was so hell-bent on stopping magic from destroying their surroundings, is Riot trying to imply that Darius/Garen/Draven/Xin Zhao/other regular joes with non-magical weapons actually are ecologically conscious? Visions of Darius in a Sea Shepard shirt aside- I have absolutely no idea why everyone won't just use the best weapons for their wars.

Look at how the United States progressed. What is the US known for now? Bombing the shit out of things from far away. Everything they have, from forward operators to satellite imagery, is geared towards that. Sure, you've still got tanks and dudes on the ground but really why would you even bother coming in close when you can just bomb the fuck out of it?

In that same vein, why in hell would anyone go near Garen when they could just bomb him from far away??? That being said, GANGPLANK YOU ARE THE MOST SENSIBLE PERSON IN ALL THE FIELDS OF JUSTICE. Don't mind me, I'm hungry and I'm rambling.

Where was I? Right. So, assuming that we have magic and technology peacefully co-existing in Runeterra without tearing holes in my sanity, what about medicine? We know that healing spells are absolutely the shit, but we also know from Swain's lore that traditional medicine still exists because they reset his leg and gave him a crutch because he told them he could take a permanently broken leg like a man. SO- why not just throw away traditional medicine and just go around healing people like Jesus???

I tried to elaborate a bit more on that and hopefully it made more sense than say, Annie-not-aging-despite-having-been-there-since-the-inception-of-the-League (AND I WILL EXPLAIN THAT, Riot hire me). If you're too lazy to scroll up/remember, tl;dr: healing helps your body, not your mind. Master Yi is stupid broken.


	15. Out of Many, One

_I will not be clapped in a hood,_

_Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,_

_Now I have learnt to be proud_

_Hovering over the wood_

_In the broken mist_

_Or tumbling cloud_

**The Hawk (William Butler Yeats)**

* * *

**TWO DAYS LATER…**

" **Fuck**  this." One of the candidates said the words that had been lurking in their heads all afternoon.

Darius didn't exactly disagree with him. Water was pooling in the trench thanks to the rain, clumps of dirt and vegetation floating about as fine particles permeated through his wet clothing and made him want to drop his weapon and scratch his nether regions. Sharp rocks were now being revealed as the rain and the candidates' frustrated movements swept away layers of dirt.

There were five of them in the muddy trench- Chauster, Trucco, Rian, Hayes and himself. The other candidates of his platoon were somewhere farther away, to carry out another part of his convoluted plan.

It was a rather strange plan- but then again they did not have much of a choice given their circumstances. It seemed like a thousand years had passed since they had formed ranks in front of Chief di Castellamonte for the final phase of the Crucible.

"Dominance Company, there are only forty-four of you left, from one hundred ninety." Chief di Castellamonte had given them a grim smile. "I feel that is a number that could still be whittled down. One trial remains for you to complete the Crucible- there are five objectives on the grounds, and you must capture at least one of them and hold it at all costs."

"Who would be our opponents, Chief Instructor?" Darius had asked then.

"Why, each other." She had replied with a cruel turn of her lip. "The entire training standard will also be participating, and their goal also is to take those five objectives. At the end of two days, whichever platoons are holding onto the objectives have the right to live. The rest will be culled."

She had divided them into two platoons composed of some twenty-two men and women, and then explained what the objectives were: the instructors had moved through the grounds a week before, planting a large Noxian standard on top of a rock cairn slathered with white paint. Two were in the middle of flat land, with no natural defenses about; the other three had been planted in the middle of a bog, perched precariously on a ridge and placed beneath a sheer cliff respectively.

"This is your final task, one you must complete to be worthy of further education. Do not disappoint me." The Chief had stared at them all judgmentally, and Darius felt her gaze burn into him. He cast his glance down onto the gloved hand that was holding onto a new, standard-issue axe- he had never found his old one and he did not regret losing it at all because it had just been an axe. "If you fail, I will take great pleasure in terminating you myself."

Chief di Castellamonte had made Harkin the leader for his platoon. The man was ape-like, with long arms, a thickset face and large hands. Privately, Darius had felt that it was a rather stupid decision for her to make because, even though Harkin was tough, he was an absolute buffoon. But he had held his tongue then- he did not want to disrespect her by countermanding her decision.

That had been one day ago. Since then, Harkin had proven himself to be about as stupid as Darius had imagined him to be. The idiot had insisted on going after one of the flatland objectives, telling them that it was easier to obtain. Darius had stopped him the first time, pointing out that there was absolutely nothing there to help them, that there was no tactical advantage or disadvantage present. Harkin had stared at him stupidly, his ape-like face contorting.

"But it's easier," Harkin had told him. And Darius had stayed his hand then purely because a platoon had suddenly come rushing out of the heavy murk, trying to kill them before they even went near a single objective. They had fought off the assaulting platoon easily- Harkin did have his merits- and had looted the bodies for supplies.

Darius had tried arguing with him again, but the bigger man had shrugged him off. He had kept his mouth shut after that, because he did not want to delay his platoon any longer. After trudging through rain and rapidly disintegrating terrain, Harkin announced that they were going to assault the bog objective instead.

"What the fuck," Darius had practically railed at him then. "Are you doing? You can't go to the bog objective- not in the motherfucking dark. We haven't even conducted a foot patrol. What if there's already a platoon there?"

"Well, the bog objective is close, isn't it?" Harkin had asked him. Darius had shown him the map only ten minutes ago. "So we should go there."

"At night?" He had shouted before someone from his own platoon hit him in the back and told him to shut up.

"Why are you being such a bitch, Darius?" Taller and burlier Valdas, of the House of Daubney, told him. "I want to get an objective too, so we should probably hurry."

"You insane  **fuck** ," Darius had spat back. "There's a difference between being aggressive and being reckless, and there is no point in running through a marsh at night to get to an objective that you haven't even scouted yet!"

He would have throttled them both to death, but at that point the older and more veteran Seamus decided to interject- he had been placed into Darius' platoon, and he had remained silent thus far.

"Let him make the mistake," Seamus had suggested wryly.

"At the cost of our lives?" Darius had whirled on him. "We're going to fucking fail if that asshole gets what he wants."

Seamus had taken his rage and had laughed at him. "You fuckhead, I've seen all kinds of dogshit in the infantry. You get officers like that all the time. Let him do his gamble- if it pays off, we've got the objective. If it doesn't, kill him, then take command. It's that fucking simple. Nobody's going to fucking stop you when they're all tired and shit."

And so they had carried out Harkin's disastrous plan, and true to Darius' suspicions, the objective had already been taken. They were already exhausted from marching through the knee-deep sludge. The moment they reached the objective, they thought they were the first to come- no one was around.

"You see," Harkin had said. "We've got this."

And then they were surrounded- the platoon that had taken it earlier had decided to wait in the murk, deceptively leaving the Noxian standard alone. Now they fell on Darius' platoon with brutal fervor, cutting down Valdas and another two candidates before Harkin managed to sound the retreat. They had run through the bog, heckled by arrows and spells. They lost one more with that retreat, and the moment they felt that they were well and away from the other platoon, Darius had walked straight up to Harkin and separated his head from his body.

As Seamus had said, the rest of his platoon had been too exhausted and too hurt to complain about the abrupt change in leadership. The first thing Darius had done was to relocate them all to a more defensible position, a thicket on a hill, with brambles to the north and a solid cliff face in the east. They had taken stock of their situation then.

All the platoons had been issued the same supplies: one waterproof foldable map of the grounds, to be kept inside an oilskin bag; fifteen packs of biscuits and meat jerky, which essentially was just one day's worth of rations for five people; a pack of medical supplies, for three minor scrapes or one major injury; one survival machete; six explosive runestones, for whatever reason; twenty-two water canteens, with three packets of water purifying agent to prevent dysentery; two field-issue binoculars, with vision of up to 350 feet at 1000 yards; twenty-two spare uniforms and waterproof ponchos; three packs of waterproof matches, each containing twenty sticks; three pieces of rope cord, ten feet long; two canisters of lamp oil; two black square lanterns, armed with a sliding metal visor in order to send coded messages with; five fishing hooks, for whatever reason; one waterproof pocket watch, to keep track of time with; one hundred pieces of ammunition, for the candidates who used ranged weapons; one shovel, to dig trenches with; and two communication shards, to be shared within the platoon.

What were communication shards? An exceedingly important innovation, communication shards essentially were the Noxian answer to Piltoverian radio technology. The shards were just that- smooth pieces of black crystal laden with heavy blue runes. The things were made in pairs and enchanted to communicate with others in a network.

The advantage behind using communication shards was that it was not at all easy to eavesdrop on Noxian communications whereas Piltoverian radios were easily infiltrated by Zaunite tech. Noxian telepathic crystals allowed for a greater and more secure connection, and communication happened in real-time. Of course, the only drawback was that once one held onto a Noxian communication shard, if one knew how to utilize it, it was a window into the entire Noxian battlefield network. And if one had any magic-neutralizing artifacts, it would be an easy matter to cut off communications for entire regiments. Needless to say, the shards were destroyed if capture was imminent.

On paper, it was fairly easy to use: Noxian mages had no trouble at all, and even the most magically inept person could tap into the network because the shards had been made with them in mind- one only had to maintain focus while accessing the shard. In practice, however, holding focus was immensely difficult to do, especially while spells and other projectiles were flying over one's head. That was that was why there was more than one person in every Noxian platoon capable of operating the shards. Darius had utilized the crystals easy enough in their classroom lessons, but he had yet to use the shards in the field.

Harkin had kept them all on the move, even pushing them to eat while on the march. Their food supplies were down to only three packs of biscuits and jerky now. Their medical supplies had already been run through thanks to the failed assault. Some candidates had gotten off easily with only minor scrapes, but there was one man with a broken leg that had to be put down- none of them knew healing magic, and it was a nigh unanimous opinion among them that they could not afford to haul him about on a litter or give him a crutch.

There had been only seventeen of them left, and all tired and soaked through. Darius had opened the map, had stared at it before calling Seamus to his side to consider their options. Despite his rough manner, the veteran had proven himself on more than one occasion, and no one else was moving to take command.

"The closest objective would be the bog objective," Darius had stated as rain peppered the map's waterproof covering. "But we're down to seventeen heads and if the fighting hasn't gotten worse for the other companies, we can't possibly compete with them- assuming that their numbers are the same as ours when we first began."

They thought of a plan then- it was a risky one considering the fact that they only had a limited number of hours left. Darius had not wanted to wait that long, because it was a risk that he did not approve of at all, but Seamus had managed to convince him otherwise.

"If it fails," The veteran had told him. "Then at least you didn't fuck up like Harkin. You've got brain and guts, kid. That's saying a lot."

The moment they had completely formulated the plan, Darius had them moving through the sinking wood to carry it out, and making them go in pairs so that they could pull each other out if the wet earth had decided to eat them. There had been a particularly risky portion of the plan when they skirted close to one of the objectives, but thankfully they had not been discovered. Once preparations had been complete, he had settled them into what had been a relatively dry and stable place, to wait out the rain and to rest until the next phase. He had decided to share a foxhole with Seamus for the night, because he had wanted to go over the specifics of the plan again and again until the two of them were absolutely certain they could have done the troop movements in their sleep.

It wasn't until midnight rolled around- it was hard to keep track of time with the rain obscuring the clouds but the watch that they had been supplied with had survived thus far- that another platoon had come literally marching into the platoon's bivouac.

Darius had been nodding off because the events of the day had exhausted him, and so when he clashed with the other platoon he had fought like some dazed, shambolic thing until the adrenaline returned to his veins and gave him a sort of hyper clarity- his entire frame was tingling, his heart was racing, and it almost felt that he could see every single thing about him, right down to the water droplets on the black trees' trunks. They did not lose anyone in the assault, which was a blessing in itself, and the supplies that the other platoon carried were immensely welcome.

"Gods above," Darius breathed out. His teeth flashed white against the mud and grime on his face as he grimaced and massaged his temples with his muddied gloved hand. "That was… something."

"Yeah," Seamus grunted out as he sank into their shared foxhole. Both of them were shaking- from the cold, from the stress, from the exhaustion.

Darius' heart was pounding in his ears still, even as he cleared the arrows that the other platoon had misfired, gathering the bolts that had not snapped into a tidy pile. "I hope the plan works." He told the older man.

"It will. Can't wait." The veteran grumbled out as he set his crossbow next to him. "Are you going back to sleep?"

"I have to decide the duty rotation first." Darius replied- he was halfway out of the hole.

"I'll take first watch. I need to do a combat jack anyway." Seamus returned as he too exited the foxhole.

The fourteen year old blinked in curiosity, tilting his head at the veteran in front of him.

"A  _what_?" Darius asked him.

"A combat jack," Seamus repeated, as if the words would suddenly just explain themselves to the younger man.

"What's that?" Darius said slowly.

The veteran stared at him as if he had been some Void creature come to consume him. "Am I  _really_ ," The veteran said dryly. "Going to fucking talk to you about combat jacks?"

Unfortunately for Seamus, Darius was too curious for his own good. "…  _Yes_?"

"… If you leave me alone at my post for a very, very long time," Seamus said snappishly as he relented to the teenager's persistent questioning. "I'll answer your questions. Deal?"

"Alright." Darius replied uncertainly. "What's a combat jack?"

"A combat jack," Seamus spoke very quickly. "Is when you beat off while you're in the field. You know how tingly you got after a fight like that?"

Darius looked down at his shaking hands, felt the adrenalin rushing through his veins and filling him with a sort of raw joy and then looked back at the veteran. "Yeah." He replied.

"Okay, it's not hard to beat off after. With all those tingles in you, you'd stay up for the rest of the night. It's really handy when you're trying to stay awake for watch."

"What's beat off?" The question was an innocent one, and it almost made the veteran's eyes pop out of his skull as he gaped at him openly.

"What the fuck," Seamus said incredulously. "You don't fucking know what that is?"

Feeling suddenly ashamed for not having done something that a battle-hardened veteran perceived as important, Darius felt himself shirk back. "No," He said rather awkwardly. "No, I don't."

"What a bitch." The man snorted. "Look, we've got canteens, right?"

"Right,"

"And we have that little flavored powder to put in it so that it doesn't taste like asshole and give you the shits."

Darius stared at him blankly. "Yes…?"

"The instructions say to pour it in the canteen and shake liberally."

"And…?"

"And that's it; just shake your thing like you shake your canteen."

Darius stared at him blankly. "… From side to side…?"

"No, up and down, you fucking stupid bitch." The veteran snarled at him impatiently.

Darius watched him fidget impatiently. "But what do you think about while you're… shaking?" He couldn't help but ask.

"Titties, dicks, whatever gets you up. Now go decide the duty roster for the rest of the platoon and the leave me the fuck alone to enjoy my jack. I'll find you later when I'm done."

Darius left him to go to his post then, trying to ignore the faint fleshy noise that was sounding off from beyond the tree line as he left- it vaguely reminded him of the sound his hands would make whenever he would smack pigs on their backs to get them moving when he still worked as a butcher's apprentice.

He did his rounds through the bivouac, holding one of the provided lanterns in front of him to light his way. Most of the candidates had figured out their own rotations in their own shelters, so he mostly wandered from point to point, letting the rain soak him through and wash the dirt out of his clothing and his shoes before he settled down to take a quick nap against a tree.

He awoke some two hours later, according to his timepiece. As far as napping in the field went, the rest was enough. Feeling slightly more energetic than before, he chewed on a piece of jerky and drank some water from his canteen before he decided to go relieve Seamus.

As he approached Seamus' position again, he heard a long groan. For some strange reason, he felt extremely uncomfortable, and so he stopped in his tracks and listened to the sounds that came from the trench with inexplicable curiosity. The groans rose to muffled words and then fell into a rather deep and contented sigh a full three minutes later. For Darius it could have been an eternity.

"Seamus?" He ventured finally, when he was quite certain that the man was done with whatever he was doing.

"What?" Came the irritable growl.

"… Are you alright? Do you want to take a break now?" He asked cautiously, uncertain as to what he'd find.

"... Alright."

He shifted carefully through the brush; coming across Seamus perched on top of a pile of earth. The man looked to be washing his hands in the rain, a white substance crawling off his fingers and dropping into the dirt by his feet.

"I was enjoying my jack." Seamus said to him with a lopsided smirk.

"Is it really," Darius said slowly, feeling like he had just seen something that should have made him feel disgusted at some point. "That important?"

"Obviously, you have no have no fucking idea." Seamus pointed out with now clean fingers as he offered Darius a pair of binoculars. The younger man took it gingerly. "How good a combat jack is."

They swapped posts- Seamus crawled into the foxhole to take a nap. Darius would have settled where Seamus had been- it was a great place to keep watch because it commanded a better view of the rest of the platoon's position, but he felt oddly sickened at the thought. He settled instead on a nearby tree stump, the binoculars slung about his neck and his axe cradled on top of his knees.

Yet again, he found himself listening to the pouring rain, staring up at the dark skies overhead and marveling at the little glimpses he had of the full moon and bright stars. It was all very beautiful, in a raw and primitive way, but it was also rather quiet and the tree stump was flat and not at all sharp.

He was very comfortable then, and even though he had just come from resting his eyes, he still felt somewhat sleepy. It would be so easy to sleep, to drift back into nothingness, but he did not want to fail in his duties and he certainly did not want to be caught by the instructors.

So his thoughts eventually turned to Seamus, and the man's fixation on a 'good' combat jack. Supposedly, doing so would make him less sleepy, and he had heard the man extolling its virtues to the other candidates before they had all been scattered like dust on the wind.

He stared down at his pants again, and then thought of how to approach the idea. He pushed his axe off his knees, holding onto it with one hand. He rubbed his dirty hands on his wet shirt, trying to get the leather clean. Of course, it didn't help much, and his gloved hands were still rather filthy. After some time spent in thought, he yanked his gloves off and then slowly and somewhat guiltily slipped his hand into his trousers, wrapping his hand around himself and then stopped.

 _Now what?_  He found himself thinking.

It was a very awkward scene, if anyone cared to look at him at that point- Darius had one hand inside his pants and the other was holding onto his axe. He had a sort of confused and thoughtful expression on his face, because he wasn't quite sure if combat jacks were supposed to be this static or this boring really.

 _I might be forgetting something._  He told himself, because waiting and holding himself certainly was getting rather silly. He remembered what Seamus had said, and then experimentally flicked his wrist, up and down.

 _… Well,_  He thought as he carried on.  _It feels very strange._

The feeling- it was a tingle that spread all the way from his groin to his legs and then back again- was not a bad one. It was not  _painful_  per se, because he knew what pain was like and this was not it. It was not  _disgusting_  either, because he knew what disgusting was, had felt it and smelled it when he handled pigment bugs and hacked pieces of pork. It felt like he had fallen asleep on a limb and then woke up after a long while, so there were little pins everywhere that teased him incessantly and made him sit up a bit straighter.

He felt very warm, but it was not the pleasant warmth that made one drift off into sleep. It was more on a radiant heat that washed over him and made him more aware somehow, more aware of the tingling, more aware of his limbs and his skin. He focused on his movements, trying to build a sort of constant rhythm, and then bit at his lip when he felt a pressure building deep inside of him.

He tried to move faster at one point, but as a familiar ache settled on his right arm, he found himself slowing down again after a while. He didn't want to waste any more energy than he felt he should have, and so he continued- up and down, up and down, every single motion accentuated with prickling sensations that filled his mind and his nerves.

It didn't take long for the pressure to reach its limit, and when it did he felt a sudden urge to simply let go. The warmth came from all the way below, rushing up and spilling onto his hand as he gave a heavy groan and leaned back, feeling utterly content. The fluid was disturbingly slippery and hot as it welled over his knuckles and onto his palm- soaking into his trousers but it hardly made a difference considering he had forded a river earlier.

He didn't know what possessed him to pull his hand out and flick it off, but he did. It was a faint milky white, and he saw some of it splatter onto Seamus' pack- the man must've left it there. His nose prickled as he wiped at the sweat beading on his brow with the back of a sleeve- essentially he was smelling himself and he knew sorely needed a bath after running through brush and marsh.

He wiped his hand self-consciously on his pants, feeling a bit sheepish for some strange reason he couldn't quite fathom, and found that he couldn't bear to even look at his hand afterwards because it felt rather slick and even after he had poured some of his canteen water onto his palm he couldn't quite get the feeling off his skin. He tried to ignore it for the rest of the night as the tingling feeling persisted on and on and kept him awake- as Seamus said it would.

The hypersensitivity and energy he enjoyed, but the fluid that welled up if he gave into the pressure- not so much- as he learned later on when his watch ended a good three hours later. Seamus had taken one look at his bag and then had thrown it into Darius' face.

"Clean that up, you piece of shit." The veteran snarled at him. "What a rude motherfucker- I didn't gush all over  _your_  things."

Darius didn't know what to say- he had actually stared at the veteran for a long while before he mutely offered his own pack to replace the one he had apparently marred forever. That morning, Darius had evaluated the supplies again, and after some consideration, he sent them all to find insects to eat. His father had taught him most of what he knew, and even though the various creatures the entire platoon had gathered tasted largely like nuts and dirt put into one package, it was enough to complement their meager supplies and fill their stomachs for the morning march.

They had gotten on the move then: Darius' men went to their pre-planned positions near a bend in the river that held an ancient tree, while Seamus took the remaining candidates with him to their staging area near the cliff objective.

Seamus had been glaring at him as he accepted a communication shard from his gloved hand.

"Did you fucking wash?" He had asked him suspiciously.

"… I did." Darius had replied, feeling all the more silly that he had been apparently so crass so as to flick whatever that had been at the veteran's pack.

"Fucking disgusting." Seamus had grumbled again.

All that had been in the morning. It was well into the afternoon now, and all the tension and anxiety of being in command was taking its toll on him. He felt worn down, his shoulders were stiff and there was a pressure on his forehead that he didn't know how to get rid of- but everything about the plan was dependent on his decision-making skills. He couldn't afford to sleep, and he certainly didn't want to try having a combat jack to stay awake- not when he was sharing a trench with four other men.

"It's the second day." The candidate continued on as he pushed his hair out of his eyes. "And we haven't even captured an objective yet."

"We tried, though." Another spoke up.

"We didn't succeed." Darius pointed out irritably. "Because Harkin thought it was better to go through the marsh."

"Well, he's dead now." Chauncer snapped irritably. "You killed him, remember?"

"Shut up." Despite being younger than the other man, Darius didn't hesitate as he reached over and punched the other candidate in the face. "I did what had to be done. Harkin's assault over the bog was a fucking stupid idea."

The man landed in a pool of dirty water as one of the other candidates cocked his head back to see what was happening.

"What kind of improvement are you, anyway?" Rian asked him. "You've had us cowering in this trench for the past three hours now, and before that, we were on a hill doing nothing. This is fucked up."

"We are not  _cowering_." Darius retorted as he pushed himself up and out of the mire the trench was rapidly becoming. "We're  _waiting_."

"For what?"

"I don't have to fucking explain myself to you again," The adolescent who would become the Hand of Noxus growled. "I told you before that this pass is the only  **safe**  way to get to the river- unless you want to be an utter moron and storm the bog like Harkin did yesterday. Where did the Chief say that they'd be dropping food supplies on the second day?"

"… The old tree by the river." Chauster grumbled under his breath as he massaged his face.

"Right, and since we were only given supplies enough for one day, where will everyone be today?" Darius asked him.

"Going to the river." Trucco stated.

Chauster sat up- Darius stared at him, trying to think of what was missing. It took him only a few seconds to realize that the man's tourniquet had gone flying. Since they had to put down one of the other candidates for having a broken leg, Darius had them all making tourniquets out of the cord.

He pulled the loop of cord from the muck now and threw it at Chauster. "Don't forget your tourniquet."

Chauster caught it with a muffled curse.

"So all we have to do," Darius turned his attentions back to lecturing the rest of the men in a forced patient tone. "Is to wait for the supply drop at the river and then we'll take the cliff objective to the south of us. There'll only be a few of them left. Most of them will be hungry and glad for supplies."

"We're not well off ourselves." Trucco pointed out. "We lost Cyrano and Adalwin yesterday, and in case you've forgotten, they were the ones carrying our medical supplies."

"That was Harkin's mistake, and I made him pay for it," Darius grimaced. "We won't be able to patch ourselves up, but at least we're not hungry."

"Who knew bugs were so  _delicious_?" Chauster stated dryly. He was still sore about being hit. "I  _love_  eating crickets, cicadas, louses and grubs."

"At least you're not  **fucking**  hungry, so sit down and shut up." Darius snarled at him. He was about to rail at the other man more when a blue flare rose into the grey skies, lighting them all up in a cerulean glow. He pulled the binoculars from his neck, pressing them to his tired eyes as he looked at the tree by the river bend. It took a brief second for him to realize that the Chief- and he knew it was her because her platinum hair was so distinctive- lowered a box at the foot of the tree. She vanished when he blinked his eyes.

Darius pulled the communication shard from his pocket and held it to his ear, trying to keep his focus as he had been taught as he singled out the strand that linked him with Seamus' team.

"Package dropped." Darius told him in a matter-of-fact tone. "Chief Instructor di Castellamonte deposited the cache personally before she disappeared."

Seamus sent back a grumble of assent.

Darius felt his heart race in anticipation for the coming chase. "Get your people moving. The cliff objective only has one entrance and exit, so wait at the staging area. They'll be crawling out of their hiding places soon. Let the bulk of the force pass before you act. Keep your heads down."

"Mhm. And you? Ready to rabbit like a cowardly Demacian girl?"

Darius' mouth quirked in a sardonic grin. "I'll see you on the other side."

"You know-" Seamus said, as Darius almost broke the link between them. "You do realize I can just take the objective with just my crew?"

"I do." Darius told him. He had thought about that- it was only too easy to leave him to die, considering their plan. "But you're forgetting something, Seamus."

"What?" The man asked him with a snort.

"I'm not going to die," He stated with as much confidence as he could muster. "And I  _will_  kill you if you turn against me."

"We'll see." The veteran retorted. "You might want to move."

"Come on." Darius barked at the other five candidates in the hole. "Let's move."

"I hope you're fucking right." Chauncer grumbled under his breath.

They made it to the old tree quickly- Darius had scouted the path early on and the trail was still somewhat more stable than the rest of the land around them. There was only one crate- as he had suspected- and it was not that big at all, perhaps only as long as his arm and as tall as his boot. He picked it up easily- it was disturbingly light-, covering it with his own poncho as he cradled it underneath his arm. The rain outlined the ghostly shapes of several candidates- they all looked to be worse for wear, with torn clothes and gaunt, hollow faces.

" **HEY!** " Trucco howled, cupping one hand about his mouth to amplify his already considerably loud voice. His other hand carried a segment of hollow log, also covered with his waterproof poncho. "You assholes hungry? Too bad!"

The starving candidates took a few seconds to realize that the cache they valued was in the hands of another squad. With howling, demonic faces they raced at them all.

"Run," Darius barked at them all as he pushed through mud and water, fording the river with the crate under his arm. Misfired projectiles raced past. Something exploded behind his head. "Run. You all know the way. Don't fucking make a mistake!"

As the candidates practically poured out of the surrounding tree line like rats, Darius and his fellow candidates fled, following pre-determined trails in the muddy terrain marked out with strips of cord and scraps of uniform cloth. Adrenaline rushed through his system, soaking through tired muscle like the rain and giving him the strength to push past mud branches.

Darius had figured that the candidates would all be too hungry to realize that the instructors would only leave one crate, and so he had played on that uncertainty by making all of his candidates carry something light underneath one arm, covered by their ponchos to confuse the enemy. They ran now in separate directions, ducking and weaving to avoid projectiles, running for their very lives.

Why  _had_  he chosen to be the rabbit for this endeavor? It was not an act of sacrifice, no. He did not think the candidates in his platoon deserved to survive the Crucible, except maybe for Seamus himself. It was not because he thought Chief di Castellamonte would take pity on him if he ever failed the Crucible- her judgment was nothing but cold and rational. It was not because he wanted to know the feeling of being hounded by other candidates- he had already experienced that before in Adamant Company. No. His reason was pure and simple.

He had chosen to be the rabbit because he did not want to be afraid when he was older. Fear was something that he did not like, and he felt that this was only way he could overcome the terror he still felt sometimes at night.

And so he kept his head down, running as fast as his legs could carry him, on relatively more stable paths through the muck. Every now and then he reached out into a hollow of a tree or at a seemingly benign piece of vegetation hanging from a branch. He would claw at it, scratching away with his gloved hand until he found the wet length of cord and pulled with all of his might.

Explosions sounded behind him as screams of pain filled the air- two of six explosive runestones spent. He turned on his heel and ran again, pulling on hidden trap triggers and ducking from arrows, spells and gods knew what else. One of the arrows managed to score a lucky hit, burying the entire head into his shoulder. He gave a muffled grunt, biting into his lip accidentally as he tried to block out the pain and the burning feeling in his chest.

Four explosions now, four stones spent. A candidate came at him screaming- he must have come late because Darius was now too far from the original drop off point. The young man struck at him with his sword, and grazed the boy who would become the Hand of Noxus on the leg.

Darius pulled out the survival machete- his axe was presently strapped to his back and he had only intended to cripple the other candidate. However, he was not at all used to the machete anymore, and when he struck the blade buried itself deep into the other man's torso, and he was screaming as he fell back into the earth.

"You can keep it." Darius told him as he ran on.

Another explosion sounded in the distance- five of six. There would only be one final explosion left, and he was the only one who knew how to trigger it. There was a reason why he had chosen to take the cliff objective. Not only was it the most defensive position, but because there was only one way into it- and that singular fact made the long run worthwhile. As he could see his vision blacking around the edges, he slowed his pace and tried to breathe. He was no longer being chased- the sounds of fighting were too distant for him to consider as a threat.

Still, he did not stop moving. He walked as he stared down at the black patch that was spreading on his pants. He was bleeding, but he didn't think it was too serious. He took the improvised tourniquet from around his neck and then wrapped his leg good and tight before he continued on.

The entrance to the cliff objective was through a gorge that usually was dusty and arid during the dry season. Now it was a veritable river. In order to reach the Noxian standard planted within, the officer candidates had to negotiate a narrow trail of slippery rock that was only wide enough for one person. Needless to say, it was quite easy to see invaders coming, lined up along the path as they were to escape the raging floodwaters.

There were only two of them at the rendezvous point. Trucco, Chauster and the rest of his team was gone. Rian was nursing a wound on his arm, and he gave Darius a fevered nod as he cradled the tourniquet laden limb. His poncho-wrapped item was nowhere to be seen.

"Are we going to wait for Trucco?" Rian asked him impatiently. "And Chauster?"

"No." Darius stated simply as he reached over and pulled a rock away from the gorge face. A small stone glinted at him from the dry darkness- the final explosive runestone. "Can you make the crossing?" He asked the other candidate.

"Yeah." Rian rasped. "Yeah, I can make it."

He tapped the man on the shoulder, grimacing as the arrow that was still buried in his back twitched and scraped against his bones and his muscles. "Alright," The young man said. "Go on. I have to be behind you."

Rian did not need further encouragement. The two of them attempted the trail, and Rian almost slipped and fell into the raging river nearby. They were both peppered with the brown spray, but after having run so far and through the rain it did not matter at all.

It seemed to take forever- they moved so slow because they were injured and they were negotiating a rather difficult path- but they made it to the other side. The Noxian standard was visible in the distance- tall, red, and defiantly vibrant against the grey rain. He could see people fighting underneath it, spilling blood onto already darkened soil. He turned and threw the explosive runestone at the pass, moving his head away and shielding his eyes as the pass disintegrated, whole chunks of the gorge falling into the roaring river.

There was no way out of the objective now. Having sealed the passage, Darius reached painfully over his shoulder, feeling around the buried arrow and managing, albeit painfully, to release his axe from its harness. It fell to the ground with a thump, and his back felt lighter and less burdened as he did so.

"How bad is the arrow?" Darius dared to ask Rian as he threw the supply crate to the side. He needed both arms for his axe.

"How bad is my arm?" Rian returned to him with the smile of someone who did not truly care any longer.

"Bad." Darius stated when he looked at it again- the pain must have been excruciating for the other candidate. "… You probably won't live."

"Hm. You're looking alright." Rian tilted his head so he could see the arrow shaft quivering in the rain. "… If you don't pull it out, I don't think you'll bleed out like me."

"So I just have to walk about with an arrow in my shoulder." He grunted as he reached down and picked up his axe. The weight felt welcome in his palms.

"If you can collect enough, you could pretend to be a hedge pig." Rian stated good naturedly.

They walked into the fray, literally. Seamus was on top of the painted cairn, firing his crossbow at whatever he could hit. Bodies were piling up about his feet- some were from his platoon, some were from other companies. Many things were happening all at once- and if one did not know how to keep focus and keep calm, it was quite easy to be lost in the sound of rain, screams and barely-missing projectiles and spells.

He didn't know how long they fought- they were all so very tired and so very hurt. Each and every swing of his axe dug the arrowhead deeper into his flesh, ripping his muscles apart with its barbed edges. If it wasn't for the fact that he had been tortured with worse pain, he would probably have drifted out of consciousness like Rian had- he had seen the man fall from the corner of his eye, and though he felt some measure of despondency at the other candidate's death, he felt all the more depressed by the fact that his platoon's numbers were growing fewer and fewer.

The rain had wound down to a light drizzle. The clouds had moved away. The moon was full and bright.

It seemed like forever before he noted that there were less than ten people left near the cairn, and he was very close to his limit when he realized that everyone had stopped moving. Alarmed, and thinking himself to be under some sort of hallucinatory spell, he reached over to his back and willingly took hold of the arrow, wrenching it in place. As pure agony wracked his frame and nearly drove him into the abyss, he forced himself to stay awake and to  _see_. Everyone was standing still- he wondered why.

"Candidate."  _Her_  voice was at his ear. He turned his head and the first thing he saw was Chief di Castellamonte's scowling face. She was so close he could see the crinkle of the lines on her face and how the moonlight reflected off her platinum hair and cold grey eyes.

He swallowed nervously, and then rubbed at his eyes, ignoring the sting of the dirt as he did so, and then blinked several times to make sure that the Chief Instructor was not just some sort of bizarre ghost.

She was still there, staring him down and scowling at him, a predatory look in her grey eyes.

Darius' axe fell to his side immediately, his closed fist hovering over his heaving chest. "Ma'm." He croaked out.

"So," Her voice was deadly flat as she reared back and regarded him with a critical glare. "Did you take the objective?"

"… I believe so, ma'm." He said lamely.

"You believe so." She practically purred at him. He followed her gaze to the cairn. Seamus was holding onto the standard with all his might, breathing heavily, his other arm mangled beyond belief. Darius saw the bodies stacked, one on top of the other, arrayed like an offering to the primeval gods.

"I believe so." He tried again, begging his voice to be strong.

She cocked her head back. He forced himself to focus, to  _see_ \- and then he knew  _why_  they had all stopped. There was a ready instructor standing next to every candidate still standing, a queer looking blade in one of their gloved hands. It looked to be a simple, black straight stiletto, but it was crawling with violent orange runes.

He looked down at the Chief's hand- she too bore the blade. He looked up at her, dared to stare at her, dared to ask the question in his mind, in a voice as small as his conscious self.

"… Chief Instructor?"

She turned her head at him, considering his transgression and smiling oh so slightly. She placed a gloved hand on his cheek, and it felt disturbingly cool against his own burning skin.

"Yes?" She asked him, as her other hand shifted upward. All around them, the other instructors had done the same- a hand on the candidate's cheek, another on the blade as it made the slow procession to rest atop the candidate's throat.

"… Did I fail?"

She stared at him almost lovingly, even brushing the grime away from his face.

"Do you trust me, candidate?" She asked him instead, and he took note that she did not say 'warrior-child' like before.

"Yes." Darius returned- he was utterly exhausted and in pain. He had been afield for two days, had shouldered the burden of command for one, and the only thing he wanted to do with all of his heart was to close his eyes and to sleep.

"What is our creed?" She whispered to him, and he had to strain his ears to hear her because he could feel himself slipping away.

"Strength above all." He replied exhaustedly, mechanically. He had memorized the creed of Boram's Point on his first day in, had run his eyes over the words until he had been absolutely certain he could recite it as he slept. "Exploit every weakness. Defeat your foes with overwhelming force. Fight to the last man. Never surrender. True warriors of Noxus will never falter- even in the face of certain death."

There was a strange, tearing feeling on his throat, followed by an intense burning pain that made his knees buckle underneath him. His scream had been heavy and hoarse, and the buried arrow howled in his back as he fell to the ground like a dead thing. He caught himself just in time as his left hand automatically went to his throat, clutching the right side of his neck where the pain was emanating from. When he pulled his hand away and looked down. All he saw was the bright red of his life, mixed with a strange flame that seemed to dance on top of his bloodied palm.

"Candidate Darius, this is your test." Chief Instructor di Castellamonte was saying as she flicked his blood off the ceremonial knife dispassionately. "This is the true Crucible. If you are strong, if you are resolute, then you will live. If you are weak, if you are uncertain, you will die. You will find strength, or die by my hand. Noxus has no need of officers who falter."

As the realization that she had just slit his throat settled in his mind, he felt nothing but utter fury. Like a wolf with a deathly serious injury, he looked up at her, his hand clasped over the cut she had done on his neck. He could feel his own pulse dripping out between his gloved fingers.

"Anger will not help you, Candidate." She said coldly- she had caught the murderous gleam in his eyes and though she seemed as if she approved of his spirit, she did not approve of the rage that had accompanied it. "It will give you temporary strength, but no more. Against the eventuality of death, you must be at peace. With peace comes focus, and with focus comes true strength against the inevitable."

Hand still clapped against the tear in his throat, he watched her warily. He did not have the energy to go against her, but he did not want to forgive her. He had done all he can, and if he was about to die by her hand, he would not go easily.

She smiled at his pitiful attempt at defiance, at the fire that somehow managed to burn in his drained eyes. "Such a fast learner, it is no surprise that they would favor you. Indeed, Candidate, it is not wise to struggle, or to panic with such a wound. Bide your time. Keep your wits about you. Quiet determination breeds true strength that will never be taken from you."

"… Is this to be my end, Chief Instructor?" He managed to say.

"That," She said as she sheathed the blade and offered her hand to him. "Would be your decision."

Hand still clamped over his throat, he reached up and took her gloved hand. She pulled him to his feet, which was no easy task, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Against the screams of the muscles on his back, he tried to stop himself from falling over again as she swept her hand about the gorge.

All around them, candidates were twitching on the ground like dying flies. A few of them were being helped up by the instructors. Most were still on the ground, spraying their life all over the muddy earth.

"What… is this?" He asked her, somewhat mystified.

She pulled the high collar away from her neck, regardless of his discomfort, and he saw the long white scar across the left side of her throat fully for the first time. It was about as long as his middle finger, and about as wide as a matchstick was thin. "You see, Candidate, we are all branded as such." She declared. "The proof of our indomitable will, given form on our flesh. This is the mark of a true Noxian warrior, born here in the Crucible of Boram's Point."

He thought of his blood, pouring from his throat and into his fingers, how it was so hot when compared to the coolness of the air. She had just marked him in the same way  _she_  had been marked decades ago- given a brand to show the rest of the world that his will would not easily bow down to death itself.

He felt...  _content_.

"Do I have to save them?" He asked her, his throat was dry and it hurt to speak, but he pushed himself to be loud, to be strong, even if he was so close to capitulating himself.

"Do you wish to save them?" She tilted her head at him, studying him inquisitively.

He looked at the cairn, and saw Seamus twitching like a smashed roach. He would not survive.

He could not bring himself to feel  _anything_.

"… No." He admitted.

"Good." She said coldly. "If they cannot overcome their fear of death, they are nothing to Noxus."

She reached around his back and took hold of the broken arrow. She pulled it out, tearing through countless muscles and blood vessels as she did so. He screamed and fell back, squirming and gasping for air, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of the water.

Panting, he stared at her with glassy eyes, as she placed a little marble slightly out of his reach, something like embers hidden in a pile of coal shining in its mysterious depths. It emitted a homely warmth, like a fire on a cold and wet day.

"Are you still afraid?" She bent down on her knees and asked him.

His eyelids were heavy but he did not want to sleep, even if it called to his very soul.

"… No." He mumbled.

"Show me you are not afraid, then. Heal yourself, candidate."

Without hesitation, he reached out and touched the glowing thing.

There was a light, calling to him; wrapping about him like his mother had held him as a child. He felt safe for the first time in many years, and when he would have once resisted, he now fell into the white light gladly.

"Welcome to the Academy." She said to him, and it was the last he heard before he gave in.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  Okay, I have a lot to explain here, I hope you'd give me the time.

_Why did I put in the masturbation segment?_

There's a time in everyone's life that they do this. Don't send me messages like ' _o but i never masturbated ever!11 i don't need it_ ' because I will ignore you. I put it in because it's the baby step before sex. I didn't think it would be proper or even remotely realistic to just skip straight to the prons without going over this awkward and admittedly depressing phase of his life.

Do realize right now that he's essentially jerking off to stay awake, and his thoughts reflect that much. Dar's been busy for most of his life, and I really don't think he had the time or the energy to jerk off ever- what with Draven sharing his room and work taking some 12-16 hours of his life every day.

So  _yes_. I had to put that in. Because I can't just go ' _hey ninja fact- he did so and so_ '.

_How many candidates died?_

My beta and I did the math together and we determined that only some 5-10 candidates survived for the cliff objective. There are 5 objectives in total. Assuming that the other objectives would have suffered the same number of casualties, we can safely say that the graduating class will only number some 25-30. Down from something like a thousand hopefuls. Not bad for the best military academy in the city-state, I guess.

It's sort of normal. I guess. We've seen their training, so the officers that graduate could be perceived as either truly and deeply psychologically disturbed or as absolutely fearless warrior generals. Knowing Noxus, they would take pride in the latter, not the former. You do what you must to be strong.


	16. Competitive Release

_How much further do you want to go? Refuse_

_the bossy insistence_

_of new impressions—_

_lie there still,_

_behold your own fields,_

_your estate,_

_dwelling especially_

_on the poppies,_

_unforgettable_

_because they transported the summer—_

_where did it go?_

**A Shadow on the Wall (Gottfried Benn)**

* * *

**TWO YEARS LATER...**

Noxus after the monsoons was quite a sight to behold, as the carelessness and indolence of the summer months reached even into the hearts of the most ruthless and pragmatic people in Valoran. Normally a grim culture centered on blood and the harshness of war and its realities, Noxians practically threw open their doors at the end of every horrible monsoon season. Countless street cleaners would be clearing away piles of waterlogged debris; flushers would be prying valuables from bloated bodies in storm drains. Merchants would be opening watertight crates; inspecting inventory submerged during the floods and then placing on sale what still could be sold at prices that even a poor yordle could afford.

The best times of the year to visit and to purchase wares, as is often told to the few Noxian tourists and merchants brave enough to venture into the city state willingly, would be after the monsoons and during the winter months, as the entire populace seemed to stop and to take note of everything that had occurred in order to cast away what could no longer be used.

People who had been previously forced indoors for the majority of three to four months now ran amok through the streets- sometimes literally. It was not at all uncommon to see a naked person racing through the main thoroughfare, four months' worth of laundry in their arms, an entire patrol of constables casually walking past, barely batting an eyelash. After all, it was absolutely inconceivable for a person of average and middling means to own a Zaunite laundry machine, and to expect that clothes would dry during the ferocious and extremely humid monsoon months when the braziers and fireplaces were best used to fend off the creeping chill.

It could be said that Noxians were at their most festive during the summer and winter months. Driven by the need to empty inventory, bazaars dotted the multitude of Wards. Butchers and farmers would be peddling their wares eagerly, as both the aristocratic and lower-class citizens of Noxus held their own festivities to celebrate the end of the gloomy months. Children would be running through crowds, either stealing valuables from the unwary or laughing and skipping through the cobbled streets. The gap between the rich and the poor was still so evident within Noxian society, but it was not so harsh or so bitter when the rest of the city-state was at the very heights of communal ecstasy, enjoying liberty underneath a sun whose warmth had been withheld by merciless clouds.

With the break in the clouds that heralded a wonderful summer also came the need for entertainment. Establishments closed during the storms would open again- from highborn gentlemen's clubs to seedy brothels, from plain playhouses to elaborate and highly acoustic concerto halls- Noxus as a whole shook off sullen lethargy and donned a brighter, more celebratory air.

' _Entertainment'_  and ' _Noxus'_  were not words commonly associated with each other. True, the Demacians had more of a flair for city-wide celebrations, while the Ionians practically dominated the cultural stage with their elaborate dances and festivals. The Freljordians had their own customs and shamanistic dances; whereas the Zaunites took a few days off each year to get good and drunk. As far as simple pleasures went, Noxian entertainment was more visceral, instinctive, and utterly human. For the rich, there was no end to the joys of high society- erotic plays were held in the highest and most prestigious theatres alongside heartbreaking operas and raucous comedies, while the concert halls were filled with the pieces of only the best and brightest of Noxian composers.

The masses had simpler, more primitive tastes- the mindless violence of the Fleshing Arena mixed with the minute pleasures derived from cheap gin and animal fighting rings under bridges and deep inside taverns. Animal entertainment in particular was something both societies enjoyed- aristocrats owned most, if not all the horses raced within Noxus, and while they delighted sitting in the box seats and cheering for their particular steed, the less-fortunate would be milling about in off the track betting parlors, saturated in smoke and alcohol, throwing their money into faint hopes at winning, largely unaware that the book-keepers had already determined the outcome for them. Dogs, chickens, foxes would be starved and beaten, let loose to kill each other amongst the cries of frenzied men and women eager to see blood fly. The Fleshing Arena only magnified these matches- man against beast, elephants against cougars from the Kumungu Jungle, trapped by enterprising hunters.

For the most part, the Fleshing Arena was where the rich and the poor met, and when Draven had been younger he had gone to the fights to hear the crowd and imagine his name, to stare in vain at the performers and to wish that he had been in their shoes. A full three years had passed since he had last done so. A chance meeting with Emilia again, after a year of drifting aimlessly, had spurred him into furious activity.

Draven had been milling about in Ivory Ward, deciding if he should purchase more sweetmeats when there was a great noise from afar, like a thousand men cheering at once. His curiosity piqued, he decided to see what had occurred, and it was an utter surprise when he saw  _her_  again. She looked not to have aged a day since their last meeting, her beauty only magnified by the striking, layered and frilled dress in wine red and deep black.

His heart had seemed to stop at that moment, his throat constricted as she turned her head, stared at him with only the faintest hints of recognition that sent his soul careening out of his body. "Boy."

"E-Emilia." His voice then felt as if it had come from a different person.

"Hello, darling boy." She had returned.

"Y-you look… uhm… very pretty." He had not been educated very well, and so the word ' _pretty'_  was the only thing that came to mind. Still, like a diligent little dog, Draven had tried to say the words properly, mesmerized by her high accent and her gaze.

"And you, boy?" She had ventured, and at that moment he could hear his heart stop, could sense nothing else but her and her eyes, the slight twist of her lip, her smoky gaze and her voice- "… I see you did not rise from the squalor you were in."

He had not known what to say then, had not realized until then that he had not moved at all. She was still so radiant, intensely bright like the fire of an alcohol lantern, and he was still nothing but a fluttering moth, flapping idly through life.

He had stared at her blankly, had thought of what he could say in response, and found that there was nothing at all. He had lowered his eyes in shame, until he felt a gossamer touch on his cheek and realized she had touched him.

"Do you even wish to rise, little boy?" She asked him lowly.

"I-I want to." Draven had mumbled out, driven to answer by her touch and proximity.

"Then do so."

And like the faintest of winds, she was gone, swallowed up by the adoring crowd that followed her every move. He had been left standing in the middle of the market, his hands curled into fists, his coin purse stolen by some enterprising street urchin.

From that day on he had  _worked_. He had nurtured what talent he had at juggling, created numerous tricks that his body memorized better than his mind. She was his muse, to say the very least. Her every word was a cooling balm onto a feverish wound, and he did everything he could to please her so, because he wanted nothing more than to hear her praise and to listen to her voice.

There was some strange need in him to change the way she looked at him, to have her say his name instead of just 'boy'. Like his brother had placed his Chief Instructor upon a pedestal, to mold himself into what Chief di Castellamonte had felt acceptable, Draven worshipped Emilia, but unlike his brother, who had earned the love of his goddess, Draven received nothing.

In that same year, the House of Swain was abolished, and the stipend, which had been so constant and so plentiful, suddenly disappeared. Draven knew hunger again, but his older brother was no longer present to shield him from utter desperation and gnawing pain. He had not been careful with money, even though his brother had repeated to him, over and over, to save a little of his stipend for the worst times. He had not been careful with his stores either, because he had been foolish and stupid. Driven to the worst extremes, he had temporarily run with a gang of younger boys, roving through the streets like a hungry pack of hyenas, taking advantage of what could be exploited.

As his brother had gone through the Crucible, and had obtained the scar that marked him to be strong, Draven weathered hunger, fought for dominance and survived in the most  _Noxian_  way.

A disagreement on money with his pack left him alone and deprived of company, but Draven still held on to his dreams, when his brother lost his in a whirlwind of indoctrination and harsh treatment. He worked to improve his skills as a juggler, moved from juggling wooden pins to sharpened blades, from blades to swords, from swords to oil-coated batons that were set aflame in mid-air. Soon he was the talk of the Ward that he frequented. A word in the right ear and an offering of gold sent him upward from the streets into public amphitheaters, from there- the Fleshing Arena, where he had once dreamed of performing. It would have been enough, to fulfill his dream, but it was  _not_  enough for  _Draven_ , and the blossoming ego that he grew and protected like a lioness would to her cub.

Personality, Draven learned, was something that  _attracted_  people. The larger the personality, the more people would come. He forced himself to smile, to call himself by his name, to pound the syllables into the minds of others that cared to hear him. It was rather fortunate that his father had a memorable voice that he passed onto his offspring, because without it, he would not have gone far.

He took every bit of praise that people heaped on him- in Noxus it was about as rare as a rainbow during a thunderstorm- and kept it close to his chest. Criticism he learned to deflect with smooth words and smiles, and he taught himself to speak in a way that would make others remember him. He was not educated in classrooms or in the Wolf's Pit like his brother,  _no_ \- he was educated by stealing accents from the rich, by adopting the laidback mannerisms of the poor. He reached out to both sides of Noxian culture without even comprehending what he had done.

At the end of four years then, as his brother attended the final closing ceremonies for his military education, Draven was enjoying the fruits of his labor- money, attention and  _women_ , of course. Women were his primary audience, and it was only a matter of time before he learned to play them well. From tavern wenches to moderately endowed merchants' daughters, he bedded them on his rise to glory- but tonight, of all nights, was his  _first_  with a woman of higher class.

Her name was Cassandra de Sable, and he had seen her during his times at the Fleshing Arena, though he had never had the pleasure of knowing her name until now. He had just finished an intense show in the Arena when she had come onto him, whispering sensually in his ear, and he was only too happy to oblige.

Taking her back to his residence, the two of them had feverishly torn away at each other's clothes- somewhat literally in her case, as he had gotten overexcited when she had grasped him in her slender and manicured hands. They were each at the peak of their pleasure- she was ready to take him in, he was mounted on her, panting like a dog as he clutched at her waist and slid himself back and forth on her folds, losing himself in the sound of her eager and frantic moans- when the door opened and the once dark bedroom was covered in light.

Breathing heavily, Draven squinted up at the person on the other side of the door, and it took him a good five seconds before it registered to him that the person who had barged in, who was now standing and watching him with an impassive expression on his face as he lay on the bed naked and erect with a squirming woman underneath him was his  _brother_.

Darius was  _home_ , after four long years. He seemed to have grown taller and stockier. The clothes he was wearing were absolutely foreign to Draven- he had grown so used to seeing his older brother walk about in ragged and patched drab clothing, but now Darius was wearing an elaborate and regal ensemble that seemed to have a category of its own.

His tailored coat was blood red, which already hinted at its cost, and looked to be made of soft and sleek material. It had an upturned collar that folded against his brother's neck, and bore black trimmed, twin rows of folded velvet green down his chest dotted with polished golden buttons. The cuffs of his coat sleeves followed the same general style: black trim, gold buttons and folded high enough to let just enough of the white ruffs of his shirt show.

Darius was wearing a vest underneath, and a black neck cloth. His white collar was turned up, and starched. His blood-striped black pants were bloused into tall boots. He wore black gloves- leather, and it looked to be lined with something soft and tailored to his hands. There was a loop of red and gold braid about his brother's shoulder, underneath gold and black shoulder epaulettes marked with a single golden bar. He bore a medal over his left breast- that of a golden mace encircled in a ring of leaves and topped with a crown that seemed to be made of thorns.

They could not afford to have their hair cut before, so Darius had often trimmed his hair when it grew too long and too troublesome. His brother had never trusted him with the scissors, however, so Darius' hair often grew on and on until he trimmed it himself- with catastrophic results. Where his hair had once been an unruly, uneven mess, now it was cut short enough so that it barely touched his ears- admittedly, the look didn't suit his brother at all. The single strand of white hair had multiplied to maybe five or seven in a little patch.

The scar that his brother had suffered before was still on his brow- it had healed, and took on the appearance of something sharp and jagged that had been left under his skin, and then painted on to stand out. There was a new scar- actually, there were several new lines on his brother's face, and the shadows had deepened underneath his eyes- but the new scar over his right jaw, reaching up until his cheekbone- it looked raw and angry, and Draven could see that it still wept blood in some places and marred his starched collar with stray drops that had hardened to a deep brown.

There was a muscle twitching on his brother's face, underneath his scarred brow as Darius cleared his throat and spoke in such a strange voice that Draven blinked several times to make sure that he wasn't just having the worst nightmare he had ever had in his life.

"Draven," His brother intoned. "When you are  _quite_  finished, I would like to speak with you."

Draven had to remind himself to close his mouth as he hastily drew the covers across himself. Cassandra's mouth was in a brief 'o' of shock, but she quickly snapped her jaw shut and tilted his head at him, utterly intrigued.

For his part, his brother seemed to take  _her_  nudity in complete stride. "… Good evening, miss." Darius inclined his head downward in an unmistakable sign of courtesy.

"… Good evening, lieutenant." She returned with disturbing grace- and for someone who was wearing absolutely nothing, she made it seem as if she was returning his greeting at a public event, clad in only her very best clothes.

"… I am not yet a lieutenant." His brother stated.

"You will be." She said confidently, staring at Darius in a  _strange_  way- almost as if she was  _pleased_  to bare herself to him.

His brother stared at her for some time before he cleared his throat and spoke again. "I will give the both of you time." He said simply. He then turned rather sharply on his heel and closed the door behind him gently.

"What the  _fuck_." Draven breathed out as he shook his head, running a hand through his hair as he tried to compose himself. "What the fuck is he doing home? He was… he was in military school-"

"Ah, yes. His uniform is Boram's Point. Their officer candidates usually graduate at around this time," She told him none too gently as she clambered out of bed. Draven watched as she pulled the sheets about her buxom chest and padded around the room, gathering clothes previously thrown aside.

"He should've told me-" Draven muttered with a shake of his head as he moved out of the bed as well. "Motherfucker- that was so fucking awkward."

"I dare say he is rather eager to get home." Cassandra explained as she stared down at the sad remnants of her undergarments. "Blast it- look what you did."

" _Eager_? You mean he's not supposed to be home yet?" Draven walked over and stared at the scrap of cloth that had been her brassiere. "Fuck- sorry. I got-"

She reached up and gave him a pat on the cheek, and somehow the gesture felt less comforting and more patronizing. "They had a graduation ball today. Why you poor thing- I suppose you'll just have to purchase a new pair for me. These are made from Ionian silk."

Draven blinked at her in askance. She sighed and rolled her eyes as she dropped the torn cloth. "I shall have to bring you to Ivory Ward then, to show you- oh, no. Never you mind."

"… What?"

"Perhaps I shall take your brother instead." She ignored his words as she tapped at her chin and gazed at him. Draven felt much like a stack of meat on the butcher's block, being appraised for a value that he had absolutely no idea about. "Your brother would make a fine escort- he would not dare refuse me either."

"I'm willing!" Draven sputtered out, even as the questions increased to a disturbing and confusing buzz inside his mind. What the hell was going on? Why was she more interested in  _Darius_  now? "I am!"

"Yes but- did you see the medal on his chest?" She smiled at him kindly and licked her lips. "And that build…"

"Hey! You wanted to fuck me only a few minutes ago! What fucking changed?" Draven demanded as his rage poured out into his shaking thin frame, narrowed eyes and harsh voice.

He tried not to feel cheated or deprived as he asked. "Why would you ever want to fuck  _Darius_  instead of me!?"

"He's-" And she breathed out a sigh- it seemed to him that she was just itching to just go outside and fuck his brother. "Well,"

"Come on," Draven growled. "Tell me."

"Well-" She looked behind her, as if she half-expected the older sibling to open the door again. Once she was satisfied, she turned back at him. "I've heard my parents talk about him- after surviving the Crucible, he dominated the rest of the course. That medal- that was the Commander's Baton, and quite frankly, with a body like that, I'm not at all surprised.  _Mhm_."

Draven tried to understand what she had told him- the Commander's Baton? That golden stick he saw earlier, pinned to his brother's silly coat?

"…  _And_?" Draven asked her.

"It means he has the highest ranking in the  _entire_  graduating class." She rolled her eyes at him again. "And if I remember correctly- when he gets conscripted, he'll be a lieutenant, instead of a second lieutenant."

"That's not much, is it?" Draven joked weakly. "H-hold on, how'd you know...?"

The steely and exasperated look she gave him silenced his awkward laughter.

He couldn't help but feel put out now. He had fought so hard to have her  _look_  at him, had worked so many months to make her see him  _alone_ , and it only took his brother three minutes to take her attention away from him and she looked ready to fuck Darius  _senseless_.

"Everyone who graduates from the schools get a starting rank in the military. Precisely what rank would largely depend on their performance and if they have the gold to purchase a commission." She was practically lecturing him now. "To be a lieutenant right out of the gates,  _alongside_  his stellar performance?  _Someone_  paid the way to see to it that your brother would only get the very  _best_."

"But that doesn't really  _matter_  right?" Draven tried. "I mean-"

"It does!" She recoiled from him now, walked away from him if he was made of fire. "You utter ignoramus, it does! Ugh- why did I even consent to this? How stupid!"

Draven fought against the overwhelming feelings of impotence that were rushing at him and he tried his best not to be angry at a person who had just walked back into his life after being such a central figure for most of it. It wasn't Darius' fault- they had not been in contact for a long while and after four years, he had thought his brother dead or gone-

"I'm  **not**  stupid," Draven's voice sounded more pitiful than he thought.

"Then stop being so stupid!" She huffed at him as she stared at him. "Look, Draven, I like you-"

"You lying bitch!"

She rolled her eyes again and he found himself curling his fists in rage. "Oh very well, I never did see you in the same fashion- I was playing with the idea of laying with someone of lesser rank. The point,  _ingrate_ , is that people like your brother are  _made_  men, and they are far  _more_  than you can possibly ever be."

"You told me yesterday that I was-"

"I was lying." She snapped. "To get you to bed. To fuck you. Now, that is something you can understand, I take it?"

White hot fury rushed through his veins now, Draven advanced towards her, his entire frame shaking like a leaf in a bitter wind. At that moment, the door opened again, and then his brother was there, bathed in light as if he were a military angel descended from the heavens.

Surprisingly, even before his brother could open his mouth to voice the inevitable question of why he was taking so long, Cassandra was running towards him, tears gathering at the edges of her eyes where there had been nothing before.

"He's trying to kill me!" She shrieked at his brother as she took folds of his uniform in her hands, ducking behind him and using Darius as a shield. "Stop him!"

Darius stared down at her, and then looked at Draven expectantly.

"She's fucking lying, Dar!" Draven snapped. "I never fucking touched her!"

Darius' stare went down to the woman clutching at his coat. Slowly, as if he was prying off some foul substance off his sleeve, he pulled her fingers off him. "That is quite enough from  _you_." He rumbled. "Did you think me immoral enough to fall for you?"

As if he had just pulled the mask on her face, her fearful expression faded into one of derision. " _Immoral_." She spat. "Do you think yourself some  _paragon_  of principle? How  **arrogant**  of you."

"My brother is  **not**  a toy." Darius growled lowly- and his voice twisted into something like the ominous rumblings of a distant and black cloud. "You will see yourself out at once."

"Do not presume to order  _me_ , lieutenant." She snarled back at him as she placed her hands on her hips, standing bare and defiant in his face. "You are  **nothing**  to me."

"I dare suppose your father would be…  _dismayed_ , if he should find out where you are tonight." Darius drawled. Draven stared at the two of them, speaking in strange haughty accents and using words that he couldn't fully understand- what the hell was going on?

"My  _father_ ," Cassandra repeated with a disdainful laugh. "And how would  _you_  know of my father, lieutenant? He does not associate himself with  _your_  ilk."

" _Perhaps_  you do not know him as well as you should." Darius retorted. " **Leave**. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee that I will remain silent of your trespasses this night. I will  **not**  repeat myself."

"You may be the Commander's favorite," Cassandra snapped back. Dropping all pretenses of innocence, she went around the room naked, gathering her clothes from the floor. "But even  _you_  do not have  _that_  much influence. Be mindful of who it is you are threatening, peasant!"

"I am well aware of who I am threatening- Bohemond de Montpelier's newest  _acquisition_." Darius retorted. "It would certainly be a  _shame_  if  _he_  heard of your… nightly exploits."

"How  _dare_  you!?" She shrieked at him. "What I do- It is  **not**  a crime. Not in  _Noxus_."

" _You_  are  _fully_  aware of the standards of House of Montpelier- I hardly need to remind you of the reason why you were engaged in the first place." Darius shot back.

" _You_ -" Her face was livid now, not from embarrassment, but from sheer  _rage_. "How do you know that? How did you-" As a thought crossed her mind, she stared at Darius with nothing but mortification in her face. Shrieking, she fled the apartment, clad in nothing but a sheet.

Draven stared at Darius, confusion written all over his features. His brother sighed, flattened his slightly rumpled coat with a few sweeps of his gloved hands and then stared back at Draven as if he had done nothing peculiar at all.

"What did you  _do_?" Draven asked, utterly baffled.

"… Oh." Darius responded. "…  _Nothing_  at all, I merely reminded her of her duty as a third daughter."

"… Which is?"

Darius shrugged his shoulders. "To be  _married_ , of course."

"… And how is that-" Draven waved his hands about. "… How did you…"

Darius glanced at him in mild surprise- as if he had expected him to understand the situation from the onset.

"What did you  _do_!?" Draven repeated.

"… When I graduated from Boram's Point, I met her father, and he implied that I could marry her, if I so wished it- otherwise she would become Bohemond's new wife." Darius offered, and he looked as if he was explaining why the sky was blue to a nine year old child. "I told him that I would inform him of my final decision once I met her. I do not think I will- her tendencies are most unpleasant. I spoke with her earlier this evening and found her character to be lacking. Soon after, I saw her leaving the ballroom with one of the senior officers –" He gestured vaguely to the unkempt bed and the sweat-stained sheets. "… Only to see her again in your bed. How  _quaint_."

"… Are you saying she's a slut?" Draven asked slowly as his mind scrambled to decipher his brother's complicated words and alien accent. The second massive question bumped against his tongue and spilled out of his mouth. "There are sluts even there!? Why the hell would her father want to have her  _marry_  you?"

"She is not very important, as far as her inheritance and her fathers' alliances are concerned. She is the third daughter- the first marries for love, the second for alliance… the third and the rest, to whomever their father wishes- be it a senile old man or a… promising newly minted lieutenant from the finest school in the state.  _Her_  opinions matter very little." Darius tilted his head curiously at his brother. "The depressing fact of the matter is that she is well-aware of her value towards her father… for a very long period of time now, if her behavior tonight is any indication."

Draven had to blink several times as he digested the information his brother gave him. He had never suspected anything of the sort from her- was he too stupid, or too blind to see it? Or was he simply too eager to please?

"… So she's been… a slut for a very long time now?" Draven asked helplessly as he stared at Darius gloomily. "My first noble fuck and it's a manipulative cunt. What fucking luck."

Darius looked as if he had seen a dog bend over and deposit a great steaming lump of excrement in front of him at his brother's words. "… Well, if you wish to be crass…  _yes_ , she would be a... lady with drawbridge legs, I suppose..."

"A  _what_?"

"A lady of the night, an escort for lonely men… a streetwalker," Darius waved his hand about, fanning the imaginary stench away from his face. "What men term her kind matters very little."

"… Fuck." Draven said with a disappointed sigh. "…  _Shit_. I don't know... I really thought tonight was the night."

"… Yes, I can see that." Darius said with a pointed look at him. It took a few seconds for Draven to realize that he was still naked, and still somewhat aroused. Even if she did reject him, she still had been mostly naked- "I will… go and prepare something to drink. Do pull some clothes on."

"… For what?" Draven asked.

"I have been away for four years." Darius said. "Not surprisingly, I wish to talk to the brother I left behind."

Draven picked a pillow up from the floor and pulled it over his crotch. "There, we can talk now." He said with a grin. He hoped to make his brother laugh- or at least, forget about the horrible situation that had just occurred.

"… Your childish antics are hardly amusing." Darius stated with the hint of a frown in his face. "Cease desecrating that cushion at once. "

"But we're talking right now." Draven prodded further, the cheeky grin on his face growing. "If you don't want me to dese-whatever the pillow, then maybe I should just drop it?"

"How mature of you." Darius replied snidely as he left the room. "Put some clothes on."

Still hoping to irk his brother further, Draven threw the pillow back on the bed and went outside.

Darius was heating a kettle on top of the furnace when Draven entered the living room. Now that there was plenty of light in the room, he could see his brother properly for the first time in four years. At first glance, it didn't seem as if his brother had gotten any older- taller, maybe, and a bit stockier, but other than that, the differences were not immediately obvious. It wasn't until Draven moved close enough that he practically banged into the corner of the table in shock.

His brother's eyes had gotten so old- he didn't know how, but it seemed as if Darius had faced some inconceivable hell and now his eyes were nothing but dimly lit orbs. It had been a long four years, but Draven still remembered the days when he could see something in those eyes- sparks of annoyance, anger, regret, glints of determination, hope, and joy- but now, there was nothing but an impenetrable wall of darkness, and he did not know if the thing in front of him was his brother any more.

"What happened to you?" The younger boy found himself asking, in a voice that seemed to him too soft and too frightened for someone addressing an older brother.

"An education," His brother rumbled back.

His voice had changed also; now that Draven had more time to process the sound- his brother's voice had been cracking and tinged with uncertainty when he left. The person in front of him was speaking in a strange accented tone more suited for the aristocracy- with stiff lips, formal inflections and long drawls. His voice was nothing but a thundercloud overhead- ominous, harsh, boomingly distant and eerily confident.

His brother offered him a steaming mug, and it took a few minutes for Draven to fully process the idea that his brother had given him something- he had been so shocked.

Darius took a sip from his own mug, even as Draven stared down at the cup in his hands. It was tea- he had purchased some before, mostly out of curiosity. He had never acquired a taste for the stuff.

"No thanks," Draven said uncertainly. He put the cup on the table.

"Put some clothes on." Darius rumbled as he tilted his head at Draven's naked form- absentmindedly licking a small speck of black from the corner of his mouth.

Draven tried to hide the sudden onset of nervousness that gripped him- his prodding seemed like a good idea before, but now that he could see his brother properly, now that he could see just how much of a stranger the older man was in front of him- he felt quite like a boy taunting an irritable crocodile.

"Why can't you talk to me now?" Draven asked him with a forced smile, even as the scent of the drink wafted over in his direction-coffee? His brother was drinking coffee? He still remembered the days when they could hardly afford to buy bread, let alone flavored beverages.

"Because," His brother went on in that same alien and haughty tone. "You are still naked, even when I instructed you to change. I do not find your defiance amusing in the slightest."

"… But it was fine before." Draven piped back.

"It was fine," His brother pressed on. His voice and general expression never changed, and it was strange to see him control himself so, when Darius' old self would have started to snarl at him. "Because you were living alone. Now get changed."

"Or what?" Draven dared him. When they had been younger, Darius would have threatened bodily harm on him. He didn't know why, but he found himself longing to hear that response, seeking for something familiar instead of the stranger in front of him.

"I will take all of your clothes and I will put them on you," His brother's voice lowered to a frightening decibel that made Draven's gut sink. " _All_  of them."

Apparently his brother had learned new ways to torture other people. Still scrambling for a way to deal with the stranger, Draven meekly ran back into his room and found the closest pair of drawers to put on. As he moved back into the larger room, he could see that his brother had taken a seat- and again he was struck by the change.

Darius had always slouched. Now he sat as if there was a board tied to his back. His hands were neatly wrapped about the single cup of coffee, and he was still watching him so impassively- like an inspector would regard a strip of hung meat.

His brother had taken the blood red coat off, and had put away the red and gold braided rope. He was sitting as primly as one could please, with his spotless black neck cloth, immaculately starched long-sleeved white collared shirt and tailored burgundy vest. He was not wearing his black leather gloves any longer- and Draven could see the numerous new scars that crisscrossed his brother's flesh.

 _How many more,_  he found himself thinking.  _Do you have?_

His brother stared at him, judging his attire with half-hooded eyes and a cock of his head to the empty chair in front of him. Draven sat down and tried to emulate his brother's posture. After two minutes, he found it to be immensely exhausting, and he pulled his legs up to perch on his chair like a monkey.

Darius pursed his lip at that, but Draven persisted. After some two minutes, his brother made an exasperated noise under his breath and then pushed his coffee cup to one side.

Draven allowed himself some small measure of hope- evidently his brother had not completely disappeared.

"So," Darius stated- apparently he had finished with his silent inspection. "You seem to have survived."

Draven gaped at his older brother. "Survived? That's harsh."

"Would you rather I state that I am honestly surprised to see the apartment still whole?" His brother tilted his head at him, eyeing him with something like astonishment in his eyes.

"I'm not  _that_  bad." Draven pointed out with a frown.

" _Of course_  you are." His brother said, and it took a few seconds for Draven to fully realize the tone that his brother was using- disdain.

His brother had never been so cruel before. The frown deepened on his face and made his relatively friendlier features ugly in the light of the runestone lanterns overhead.

"I'm taller now." Draven piped up defiantly. "And stronger too!"

"… You are thinner than I left you. Much of your weight I would hazard to guess is in muscle and not in fat." His brother drawled back. "…I take it you have not been eating as well as I told you to."

"I've got a job now too!" He didn't know why he felt like shouting when he said it, but he did.

"As a… street performer, I take it?" Darius tilted his head at the brightly colored clothes strewn on the floor. He seemed to be openly judging him now, and whatever it was that he found, he did not seem to like one bit.

"Hey- I don't fucking do that anymore. I work for the Fleshing Arena now." Draven insisted, prickling underneath his brother's stare. "It's a good living!"

"… And that is still hardly acceptable." Darius pointed out flatly. "…It does not change the fact that you still live off the kindness and generosity of others."

"Well-" Draven snapped irritably. "At least I'm earning money for myself. I have been for the past fucking years you were gone."

"… Given your occupation, I think you were earning sporadically." His brother retorted.

Despite all his efforts, Draven found that he could  _not_  understand Darius now, could not discern the reasoning behind his voice or his attire or his  _alien_  personality. The chair practically flew off as he stood up and pounded his palms on the table. Darius' coffee cup would have fallen then, but somehow his brother managed to reach out and hold it in place, all without upsetting his posture.

"What does that even mean?" Draven howled at him.

"It means 'you are not earning as much or as often as you should'." Darius said when he once would have risen to the challenge as well. Though his countenance was calm, his voice sounded strained. " _Sit down_."

"Fuck you!" Draven snarled at him. "Who the hell do you think you are to come back into my fucking life like this? What gives you the fucking right to  _judge_  me? I don't know who the hell you are, but you're not my brother!"

Darius stared at him briefly, something like an emotion stirring behind the obsidian walls in his eyes. Draven's shoulders were heaving now, and his entire frame felt heated and tense. Who was this thing in front of him indeed, to judge him so quickly?

"… Very well," Darius said softly. "… I will admit, I was rather quick to judge you. I did not…  _inquire_  properly."

"Fucking right you didn't." Draven snarled.

"Despite your claims, however, I assure you that I am your brother, and throwing a childish tantrum in front of me would get you nowhere." Darius weathered his rage with grace, eyeing him as if he was not angry at all, as if his display was nothing more than a bird flapping its wings at him. "Sit down so that we can converse properly."

"Fucking make me!" Draven reached underneath the table, seeking to flip it at his brother's face. The older man in front of him reached out with one hand and pressed down hard on the middle of the table- and for all his efforts, Draven found that he could not lift.

There was steel in his brother's eyes and Draven found himself quailing away from the stare, his hands falling to his sides in shock.

"Sit down," His brother rumbled ominously, and he could see the blood slowly dribbling out of the wound on his brother's jaw as he grit his teeth. " _Draven_."

"What the shit are you?" Draven asked, aghast. "What did they do to you?"

"I  _learned_." His brother withdrew his hand, and he had the gall to sip at his coffee before he continued to speak. "… But I can… see that you are distressed and somewhat… upset. If you would be so kind so as to sit down, I will humor what questions you have regarding my education, and I will…  _apologize_  for my previous behavior."

Draven rubbed at his face, tried to think on the exact message of his brother's words and found that he could not. "… What the flying fuck did you just say?"

"… Ask me anything you wish," And his brother slowly and carefully leaned back in his own chair- the first sign that he gave thus far of being relaxed and remotely human. "And… I am sorry, for judging you so quickly."

Draven didn't dare take his eyes away from his brother as he retrieved and placed the chair back on its feet. Slowly, he took resumed his seat, and then swallowed nervously, trying to search for something of the old Darius in those eyes.

His brother didn't even  _blink_.

Draven tried to think- all the questions screaming to be voiced in his mind earlier suddenly disappeared. He didn't know what to say to Darius now that he had been given free rein, and he was afraid that his brother would suddenly snap at him in impatience if he took too long.

But Darius never did. As the seconds rushed past, he sat serenely on his chair, watching him and giving him all the time in the world to compose himself and to find the right words. Draven found himself appreciating the silence between them for the first time since his brother had returned.

The questions came back to him eventually. It did not take much longer before he chose the one he felt most relevant.

"… What happened to you?" He decided.

"Narrow it down." His brother returned.

"Narrow what…?"

"The question." Darius tapped his fingers on his coffee cup. "To ask me what happened to me- as a whole, it is too much to say. We would be sitting here for hours on end, I think. No- ask me something more specific."

"Is it true then," Draven struggled to remember what Cassandra had told him. "That they torture you to make you stronger?"

Darius did not even take his time to think.

"… It is true. Twice over in the Crucible, and for a final time during the Instigation." His brother tilted his head, and Draven could see the memories moving past his brother's cold eyes. "In the Crucible they- separated the weak from the strong- physically, mentally, emotionally. They made us face an unspeakable horror to teach us of strength and of fear. During the Instigation, they… imbued loyalty within us… to Noxus, and to High Command."

"Imbued?" Draven repeated.

"I am not permitted to tell you," His brother's voice seemed to tighten as he clenched his jaw and gritted out the final words. Blood oozed lazily out of his newest scar, running down his jaw and neck in a sluggish little stream, staining his collar further. "Nor can I- it is… it was a test that I dare not face again. I am  _loyal_."

"Okay," Draven found himself raising both his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Okay, I get it. It was horrible."

"… 'Horrible' is a light word," His brother scoffed. "Do you have any other inquiries?"

"Why do you talk weird now?" Draven blurted out.

"… 'Weird'?" Darius repeated the word gingerly, as if it was a bitter thing that he didn't want to have on his tongue. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he did so. "… Define 'weird'?"

"You used to speak… I don't know, like me." Draven pointed to himself. "Not all uppity and shit."

Darius looked like he was trying his hardest not to correct him. "… 'Uppity'." He repeated again.

Draven pitied him- it was almost as if Darius was doing his hardest to relearn the words he had once used so liberally. "Uppity- yeah. You know. Snooty.  _Bitchy_?"

"… Casually?" It seemed as if Darius had finally made a connection. "… Yes, I do suppose that I spoke…  _casually_  before I departed."

"Now you're just being an asshole." Draven pointed out.

"I admit that my manner of speech has become more… formal now," His brother looked to be deep in thought. "But… that change was inevitable, especially given the circumstances I faced- I was surrounded by aristocrats for the most part, and given subject matters appropriate to their class."

"… Are you telling me you learned how to talk like them?"

His brother chuckled and made a vague waving gesture. "Conversing with you now, I can see how different I must be to you. But  _you_  are different to me as well… you certainly went without the expletives when you were younger."

"That's a  _fucking_  understatement." The words tumbled out of Draven's mouth so fast that he hardly had time to process the question. The frustration was all too clear in his voice. "As far as expel-whatevers are concerned- well, I had a rough time when you were gone. A fucking rough time."

Darius gave a sigh, and Draven saw his eyes softening for the first time in what seemed like a million years spent in isolation and caution. "I see… Regardless if I may seem… cold, harsh or uncaring, I am still your brother, Draven."

"Got a hell of a way to show it." Draven snapped back. "Interrupting my fuck, judging the shit out of me like you fucking know everything that happened-  **fuck you."**

Darius looked to be testing his mouth again and grasping for patience as he responded slowly. "… Yes, well. My timing was… rather  _unfortunate_. I am… relieved to see you."

"Well I'm fucking glad to see you too." Draven replied grudgingly- even if his brother seemed to have become something else- at least Darius was alive, and still looked out for him. Still, he was unquestionably harsher this time, like someone had taken him and sharpened him into something utterly inhuman.

Draven didn't know if he should be scared or concerned.

The beginnings of a smile appeared on Darius' face- and it took quite a while for Draven to see it. He had been shocked out of his skin when his brother had returned, had continued to be surprised enough that resorting to violence seemed a good idea at the time. Now he stared at his brother with some understanding in his eyes- not enough to call the thing across him as a human being, but enough to identify stirrings of emotion if and when they appeared.

Whatever had happened to his brother to have changed him so, to have taken the boy that he could always read and understand and twist him into a haughty, drawling thing- Draven could not comprehend it at all.

Darius was still staring at him with that miniscule smile- as if he had been searching in the dark for something small, and only now did he find whatever he was looking for. Perturbed, Draven found himself leaning away. The action made the smile on his brother's face grow- and though he had longed to see his brother smile again since their parents had first died, he did not like what he saw on Darius' face then. The way his brother's face moved seemed mechanical, as if he was relearning how to use his muscles again.

"I would ask you of your life thus far but I can see tonight is a… trying evening. Why don't you go to bed?" His brother said, still with that unsettling look on his face. "You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow, do you not?"

"Fuck it, saying that it's ' _trying'_  is a fucking understatement again. Tomorrow? It's… it's nothing, just work." Draven mumbled out the side of his mouth as he rubbed at his face again. "That you hate. Or  _despise_. Or whatever word you used. 'My little brother's a street performer'. Whatever, right?"

Darius made a noise of assent in his throat. "… I can see that I did more than distress you… Would an offer to accompany you tomorrow to your work suffice by way of apology?"

For the seemingly the nth time since he had arrived, Darius' words made Draven's jaw drop down in utter shock. "What do you me- you're going to  _watch_  me work? I thought you hated it? Whatever happened to fucking putting me down? What the shit?"

"… I do not approve of your occupation, because it is unsound and highly reliant on patronage for your continued survival," Darius corrected as he lifted his coffee cup to his mouth and took a sip. "But I do not  _despise_  it, if you enjoy what it is that you do. Is there some other reason why I should not watch you?"

"Aren't you… when are you…" Draven sputtered out- his brother had demeaned his occupation earlier, and now he was asking if he could come with him? "Didn't you just…I don't know… aren't you busy? With military stuff?"

Darius chuckled- and it was such an odd sound considering that he had spent so long without his brother laughing in front of him. Draven had almost forgotten what his brother sounded like when he was happy. After their parents had died, he had watched his brother's smiles fade away into something filled with loathing, had never heard his brother laugh except in a pitying fashion. That the stranger in front of him was clearly trying to regain something that had been lost for a long time- Draven found himself smiling back weakly, even as his brother spoke on in an accent that he was still trying to understand.

"The… military 'stuff'-" There was the twitch of the jaw and the roll of the tongue again as his brother found the word displeasing. "I will have you know now that I shall be at liberty for the next four weeks, after which I must report to the nearest Noxian recruitment office in order to fulfill the terms of my commission."

"… So what? That means you're  _free_?" Draven's smile grew wider as he gestured out the window. The prospect of impressing his brother, of showing him the fruits of some four years of blood, sweat and tears- to say that Draven was excited was an understatement. He was absolutely elated. "You're free to watch me work? Oh man, I'm… I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I have so much to show you. I have…  _wow_ …"

Darius gave a nod, and the smile came on his face much easier now, less rusty and more fluid than before. "I am at liberty," His brother repeated in a corrective tone that Draven remembered more clearly. "For four weeks, Draven. You have me at your disposal before I will be given a platoon to command and deployed thence to wherever Noxus has need of me."

" _Whatever_!" Draven said with a jovial note in his voice as he stood up and sent his chair flying away again. "You're going to be watching me for four weeks!"

Darius eyed him again, and it seemed to the younger brother then that the amusement in his eyes was more genuine and less demeaning. "Ah, how the furniture survived you, I never will understand." Darius rumbled under his breath. "If you put the chair back, I may contemplate buying you dinner."

Draven nearly choked on his own spit in surprise. His brother?  _Buying_  dinner? It wasn't as if his brother was an abysmal cook- Darius actually cooked better than he did and he wanted nothing more than to see if his brother's skills had improved in the interim- but they had never bought dinner together before. They had always been too poor.

Darius nearly leapt across the table in sheer joy- as it was, he threw himself at the dining table and his brother somehow managed to save both beverages with his hands and quick reactions.

"You're  _buying_  dinner!?" Draven practically yelped at him like an eager pup.

For his part, his brother seemed to tolerate the display of immaturity as he stood up- mechanically again- and pushed the two cups onto a nearby counter to keep safe from his rambunctious movements. "… I shan't if you insist on maintaining this behavior."

"But you're  _buying_  dinner!"

"That is hardly amusing, is it?"

"But you never buy dinner! You always cook!"

"Consider this a first- seeing as we can afford it now."

The rest of the evening passed fairly quickly- once his brother had made certain that the rest of the apartment was still in working order, he moved himself back into his room- which had been largely unused for the four years that he had been away. For his part, Draven crumpled back into bed after pushing his clothes into a corner, to be gathered up in the morning.

Only the faintest pinkish yellow streaks were in the sky outside the window when Draven smelled something in the air. Never one to rise quickly, he had to literally push himself off the floor when his attempts to wake up resulted in him crumpling onto the hardwood planks like a sack of rice. It was perhaps six in the morning, based off the brass clock on the wall that Darius had installed prior to his departure. As his nose twitched and his mind tried to process the smell, he realized he was hungry… and that the smell was something good.

Half-stumbling, half-flopping his way to the door like a brain dead fish, he leaned on the doorway for support as the rest of the information made his way to his mind. From the looks of his hair, his brother seemed to have just come from the shower, but he was wearing nothing but a black shirt- which looked to have seen better days- and a pair of black loose black pants. There was a towel slung about his shoulders as he tended to whatever it was on the stove.

"… What the flying fuck?" Draven managed to say, though his grogginess made it more like a plaintive undead moan.

"Good morning." His brother said curtly.

"What are you doing up so fucking early?" Draven mumbled as he padded over to his brother.

"… Making breakfast. Is there a problem?" Darius inquired kindly. Draven looked down at the little black pan and blinked in surprise. There, bubbling and cooking happily in its own fat, were several thick and rotund sausages. The tray by his brother's elbow indicated what else was for the first meal of the day: three eggs with unusually bright and vibrant yolks, the edges of the whites a crisp light brown; two loaves of puffy golden brown bread, a few slices of cheese and a slab of butter; half an orange, a bunch of grapes and an apple carefully sliced into eight equal pieces. A cursory glance at the nearby pot made his eyebrows shoot up- it looked something like porridge, only it was a light brown color.

"Chocolate porridge." Darius explained when Draven glanced at him in askance.

"… How the hell did you pay for all this?" Draven mumbled out. "Everything looks fucking great too. Oh man, You didn't just  _sell_  yourself, did you?"

"… If you are suggesting that I turned to prostitution in order to make you breakfast, you are sorely mistaken. All of it was reasonably priced," His brother said smoothly over the pop and crackle of sizzling sausages.

"I don't fucking believe you." Draven raised an eyebrow at him as the delicious smell gradually woke him up. "It's like one gold a piece for a good two kilograms of this stuff. And  _cheese_? How far did you walk? How much did you  _pay_?"

"If you are awake at these hours, you would know that the butchers and the bakers start their work at this time, and that the products are all very cheap considering its quality in order to usher in customers." Darius explained as he gently pried his brother off his shoulder. "When I woke up this morning, it was a simple matter to walk to the covered market a few streets down."

"… There's a covered market there?" Draven blinked up at him as his mind struggled to negotiate the memories of that particular place with what his brother had just told him. "I thought it was like one of those animal fighting rings because it was just so fucking noisy."

"… I instructed you on its existence before I left." The side of his brother's mouth twitched, as if he was still in the process of deciding whether to smile or to frown at Draven's ignorance. After a second or two, he shook his head and carefully pushed the sausages onto a plate next to the stove. "… Well, it hardly matters now. I have returned."

Draven rubbed at his eyes as he watched his brother ladle the porridge into two bowls. "… Oh man, I don't fucking know how to deal with this shit."

His brother glanced at him over his shoulder in askance. "… You find all of this unpleasant?"

Draven shook his head. "No, no. It's just… this is a lot for breakfast. And you're cooking, of course, but stiff-like. Like a statue I guess?"

"I see you find my posture unnerving.  _Well_. There is nothing I can do about  _that_. As far as breakfast is concerned, we hardly had money to have something like this." Darius pointed out without hesitation. "But mother and father used to have something like this, before you were born."

"Even the cheese?" Draven's eyes widened.

"… No, that was something I felt appropriate. It was a constant while I was in military school." Darius shrugged his shoulders. "… The fruits and coffee also, but the rest… we had it every day. It was one of the few luxuries we had."

Darius placed the bowls onto the table and wiped his hands on his towel. "I have to change." His brother broached. "You may begin, if you so wish."

Draven blinked, stared down at the tray and then at his brother's face- at the old eyes and at the lazily bleeding scar on his jaw. "… Yeah, sure." He said distantly. "I'll… I'll go ahead and eat."

"… Is there a problem?" Darius probed slowly.

"… Nothing, it's just- this is a lot of fucking effort for breakfast." Draven said lamely.

"… It is nothing less than what mother used to make." Darius offered as he dabbed at his bleeding jaw with his towel. "I can see where you would be concerned and I understand the sentiment- you never had something like this."

"… I guess." Draven admitted softly.

His brother stared at him for a few moments before he shrugged his shoulders and padded off to his room.

Draven was halfway through breakfast when Darius emerged from changing. There was a bandage over the oozing scar now, and he was clad in a black waistcoat, the white collared shirt underneath buttoned up and pulled so that the starched collar curled about his neck. Draven watched him, utterly amazed as his brother tied his silken blood red cravat perfectly without even consulting a mirror or any reflective surface.

Darius noticed him soon enough, and stared at him when he settled into his seat, his black coat slung on the chair. "Yes?"

"… Nothing, I was just wondering where you had the money for those clothes of yours." Draven said around a mouth full of egg-soaked bread. "They look fucking expensive."

"There is a rather handsome monetary reward given to the candidates who obtain the Commander's Baton," Darius replied curtly. "… Though it matters very little to recipients who already possess considerable assets."

"… So the first thing you fucking bought, the moment you got out of military school, were  _clothes_?" Draven asked with a raised eyebrow, the chewed up bits of his food oozing out of the corner of his mouth as he gaped at his brother in utter shock. "Aren't you just the prissy little asshole?"

"… I was hardly being narcissistic; I didn't have anything upon graduating other than my school uniforms." Darius stated around the cup of coffee that he brought to his mouth.

"You could've bought me something." Draven pointed out with a deep pout.

"You are no longer a child to be given useless tokens." Darius stated flatly. "Regardless if you were still a little boy, I would not spend hard-earned gold on something so  _trivial_. Food, clothing, rent, armor and weapons- now those are more worthwhile. I take it you have been punctual?"

Draven swallowed the lump of food nervously. How could he tell his brother that he had been late on his payments before?

Fortunately for him, Darius seemed to read him like a book, sighing exasperatedly as he stared at him. "… I dare suppose it was too optimistic of me to have thought such."

"It wasn't as if I was forgetful or anything." Draven tried. "I just… I ran out of money. The allowance ran out."

"In your second year, with the dissolution of the House of Swain." Darius replied as he dipped his bread into the bright yellow yolk. "Again, it was too optimistic of me to have hoped they would keep their word. But this apartment is still within our rights, is it not?"

Draven nodded mutely.

Seemingly satisfied with his interrogation, Darius began to break his fast. Draven watched him curiously. Darius had always been a messy eater who never cared if his mouth was full or not whenever he talked, but now he ate fast and clean. There were no wasted movements; no brief moments spent savoring his meal as he had once done. He mechanically pulled apart his food with his hands or with his knife and fork, shoving food, chewing and swallowing without any real regard for the taste.

It was a great breakfast- the best Draven had in a long time- and so he had been thinking of the reasons why his brother seemed to take no delight in it when he realized that Darius probably would have eaten better in Boram's Point.

Darius ignored him then, tucking away as if there were devils on his shoulder shouting at him to finish faster. Draven lowered his head, stared down at his half-finished plate and at the telltale egg yolk stains on the collar and sleeves of his shirt. Staring at his brother, Darius didn't even have any lint on his waistcoat or even the faintest hint of a stain on his shirt.

"… You really must finish your food. It'll get cold." Darius' voice pierced through his musings. Draven forced out a smile.

"Y-yeah. I guess." He reached out and went back into eating as Darius leaned back into his chair and watched the sun's light move across the slate grey roofs. A thoughtful look on his face, his next words made Draven look up from resuming his meal.

"… I forgot to say, in the rather catastrophic beginning we had yesterday…" Darius looked at him, and for the first time in a long while, Draven could see that he was uncertain and grasping for something. "… I am… _glad_  to be home again."

Draven shoved all his food into one cheek so as to reply.

"Yeah. You're fucking home again. Welcome back. It'll be fucking great."

Darius smiled slightly- it was too small to be noticed, if one wasn't looking for it. "… Thank you."

Draven returned it with a wide, food-encrusted grin.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**  This took unnecessarily long thanks to writer's block and a failed HDD, but we managed to retrieve what we could. Aaaa- anyway. I wanted to show how Darius changed from Draven's point of view, and we could see how much Draven has changed also in the way he speaks and generally behaves.

That being said, the next couple of chapters would highlight the differences between the two of them even more, and then we get to meet General du Couteau and his household. Looking forward to it.


	17. Fraternal Dichotomy

_How random and how frail seemed their lives,_

_and yet how they persisted, refugees,_

_saving energy by keeping still_

_and hiding in the grass and in the trees._

_And then one day they vanished overnight._

_Clouds gathered, storm exploded, weather cleared._

_And all the wishes that we might have had_

_in such abundance simply disappeared._

**Summer of the Ladybirds (Vivian Smith)**

 

 

* * *

**ONE MONTH LATER…**

_Perhaps,_ the young man found himself thinking as he waited in the queue,  _I was never meant to be a civilian._

The sun beat down over his dark head and his broad and scarred shoulders, its radiant heat penetrating through the stifling material of his jacket. The telltale sweat pattern was making its way down his back and through his thin shirt and if he moved even an inch, the entire sheet would run down his back in a torrent of pleasant cold. It was not as if his body needed any more encouragement in the matter- the length of the line was within the hundreds, and the straps of his canvas bag had the tendency of digging into his shoulder.

Now, as ever, what bothered the young man was not the physicality of his pain, nor the discomfort that having a heavy rucksack gave him. No, what bothered him were his thoughts- those bothersome, tenacious and incessant thoughts of his current predicament and on his depressing memories.

 _Maybe_ , the string of words passed through his subconscious mind again _, if I knew how others lived, I would have left on better terms._

Better terms. His pragmatism snorted at that. ‘Better terms’ was a questionable concept at best, left to the subjectivity of the human mind and its caprices. After all, all he had to gauge on what ‘better terms’ were was his brother’s  _word_ \- and after all he had seen in the past four weeks, he was not quite sure that he had done anything that could possibly go towards a better relationship with his brother.

It was not as if he had not tried. It simply was because life had no intentions of proceeding down the way he had planned it.

Since he had returned, he had done what he had planned to do: he saw to Draven’s education again, ensured that his younger brother was eating properly and looked to making his life easier. The role of guardian was already something he had resigned himself to- since the death of his parents he had largely passed a year without complaint- the incident when he punched Draven in the face notwithstanding. Years since then, his duties were the same as ever, but it was clear- painfully so- that neither of them were.

He knew a fair bit of what Draven had gone through- his brother had never been one to keep things inside of him. When he had been washing the cookware, Draven had joined him at the sink, and that was when the younger man had seen fit to tell him what had occurred thus far.

“I guess,” Draven had begun hesitantly as Darius had kept his head down and focused on the metal pot. “You could say my life’s been shitty too.”

“Do tell.” He had muttered dryly.

“How the fuck am I going to be sure that you’re going to listen if you’re washing dishes?” Draven had retorted.

Darius had made a noise inside his throat- derogatory, but amused nonetheless. “Are you implying that I am incapable of doing two activities at the same time, Draven?”

He had felt his brother’s glare on his face and let it sit for a few seconds more before he finally lifted his head and stared back at the younger man, his hands soaking in soap and water. “… Well?”

“Y’know the money ran out.” Draven had waved his hand about, seemingly satisfied that his brother had chosen to pay attention to him only. “And… well, I was really fucked up then-“

He had not been able to resist. He had felt that his brother had been stating an unquestionable truth that did not truly need to be voiced.

“You still are.” Darius had chosen to interject then. Draven had given him a flat stare.

At that point, it had all been too amusing to him. His brother was so easy to annoy now. The younger man had always been so much more emotional but only now did Draven truly have the self-confidence within himself to react with fiery retribution on the  _smallest_  of indignities.

Darius made the same noise in his throat- he never saw fit to laugh openly now, not when it had been such an disturbing action in Boram’s Point that could have gotten his nose hammered into his skull. “… Do continue.”

“Fucking let me finish for one minute, why don’t you?” Draven had snarled.

“Anger certainly does not seem to be a stranger for you, that much is absolutely clear.” Darius had seen fit to say then.

“Fucking smartass.” Draven had crossed his arms over his chest, sulking as he used to do four years ago, and Darius had shaken his head and pulled his hands out of the sink. He had dried his hands on a nearby towel before he assumed his brother’s posture- but unlike the younger man, his posture was confident and secure.

“You have my full attention now,” Darius had replied frankly. “And I will remain quiet- you seem to have a lot on your mind.”

“Well, it was a long fucking four years.” Draven had shot back. “Anyway, where the fuck was I?”

“You were informing me that you were… not  _quite_  as responsible two years ago.” Darius had supplied helpfully.

“Yeah, whatever.” Draven had drummed his fingers on his forearm. “Yeah. The money ran out. I got fucking hungry ‘cause there wasn’t anything to eat here. I… I guess I just went out and did what I wanted. Stole stuff and sold or ate it- whichever suited me at the fucking time. It was pretty fun. Never got caught.”

To Darius, a person who had been raised to obey, who knew nothing but the cold hard truth of law and the cruelty that it gave to those who defied it, the concept of being able to evade justice was utterly  _inconceivable_. He found that he had a difficult time wrapping his head about the matter, and when his temples began to hurt he reached up to massage his face.

“Breaking a set of established norms and evading the law tends to do that to a person.” Darius had said from around his hand.

“I  _know_  it was wrong.” Draven had stared at him then, his eyes betraying minute traces of concern. “But I didn’t fucking have a choice, Dar. It was either I do the shit Mom told us never to do or I fucking starve. There was no other fucking choice. If I did, I would’ve done that.” Draven had retorted. “So- think what you want but I’m fucking  **glad**  I’m alive. I don’t fucking regret anything.”

Darius’ pragmatism encouraged the choice, nigh praised his younger sibling on his resourcefulness and resolution to endure- but the  _rest_  of him, the parts of him that still felt guilty at night for killing his parents however indirect it was, found the concept utterly repugnant. He had never thought that he would find the concept of surviving as distasteful, but here was his brother proving him wrong.

Darius’ thoughts had risen against him then- here he was, a man who had to kill countless others in order to rise to the top, a man who had faced the unthinkable at his age, blanching at the thought of breaking rules and societal norms. Who was he to  _judge_? Who was he to feel  _offended_? Given all that he had done with his life thus far, given every single inch of pain he had to endure in order to survive to this point- why should he expect  _more?_

 _There is no real point_   _then_. He had found himself thinking at that moment, even as the ache in his temples ceased to subside.  _There is no real point in obeying the law when the ultimate priority is to survive and to dominate all others. That is what they **taught**  you; what they carved into your jaw and burnt into your mind. Why you chose to imagine something else, why you chose to  **entertain** pitiful thoughts of justice and righteousness...  **there is no point in all of those without survival. Morals are worthless.**_

“Hey, Lieutenant Fuckhead, do you fucking want to hear what happened or are you going to keep looking like your world fucking exploded in your face?” Draven’s voice had interrupted his musings.

Darius had raised his head then, stared at his brother for a moment as he blinked several times and tried to regain his composure. “… Yes of course.” His voice then had but a shadow of its former confidence. “… Go on.”

“So, my life was pretty shitty then. It… it just came to that point, y’know, when I realized I could be doing more useful shit than just… stealing and living.” Draven had bit at his lip for a moment before he added. “That life- it’s not really what Mom would’ve wanted.”

The mention of their mother had made Darius sigh. Given what he had been told by his Chief Instructor then, he appreciated her and missed her all the more now- she had been so wise, to have raised them so. He found his heart bleeding anew though he had been through enough pain by now to successfully hide his guilt underneath a thick mask.

“…Mother had high hopes for the both of us.” He had felt it proper to say that then- Draven could have known it as well by now, but he honestly had felt that the time was appropriate. “… And she raised us to be  _more_  than what we were born into. She wanted  _more_.”

Draven’s face erupted into a slow smile. It was unsteady, as far as his smiles went. It was almost as if the younger man was searching for something with it, using the expression on his face as a tool to gauge for something hidden deep within his older brother. After a pause, Draven had reached out and playfully slapped his brother on the shoulder. “Look at us now, huh? You’re a soldier- just like Dad would’ve wanted and I’m… well, a ‘street performer’ with a shit ton of confidence and a lot of adoring fans. Mom would’ve been proud.”

His brother seemed to have become more than him at that point and Darius only realized it hours later as he watched his brother perform in the Fleshing Arena. Never one to go back on his word, Darius had gone to watch Draven work. He saw the way his brother played the crowd with his daredevil acts and companionable air and found himself feeling…  _proud_.

Pride was a questionable emotion, something construed as both good and bad. It was a quality best kept in moderation and not in excess, an emotion that could empower or deteriorate a man in a single stroke. At that moment, when he saw his brother and what the young man had been able to do- dashing through flaming hoops and juggling the sharpest and most wicked looking throwing axes he had ever seen in his entire life, his time in Boram’s Point included- he had found himself smiling, even for just a moment.

As much as he had demeaned his brother’s newfound occupation beforehand, as much as he had teased the younger man into a tightly-wound defensive little ball of aggression, he still felt eerily proud of him. It  _was_  a living, and while it was not as constant as he felt his father would have wanted for him, the show of skill and dexterity was still something worth talking about.

They were both very different now; the four years apart had changed them both to the point that they had clashed like two total strangers from the moment they saw each other again. Still, given all the pain and misery that time had dealt to them both, the changes had been…  _good_.

Draven no longer cried at night, no longer  _thrived_  on what comfort and reassurance his admittedly emotionally-deadened older brother could possibly provide with any degree of honesty. Indeed, the four years spent in total isolation from each other seemed to have spurred the younger man into heights far greater than his own. It seemed to Darius then that Draven had come to a realization on his own terms- if his brother was not there, if his brother was not able to offer him what he wished to have, he would make the rest of the world bend to his every whim and the world would  _love_  him for it. In realizing that fundamental truth and in playing his strengths to the very fullest, his younger sibling seemed to have found true peace.

Though his brother certainly had picked up less-than-desirable habits in the time Darius had spent away. Draven had a way with women. In Noxus, where a ‘relationship’ was best used to the benefit of only one person, the more carnal side of things brought about a new set of problems. Draven enjoyed taking women home and judging from the noises on the other side of the wall, both of them were having the time of their lives. Quite honestly, Darius had never felt anything during those nights except perhaps a mounting sense of awkwardness and exhaustion.

He had never found women attractive, had never felt anything towards women other than an innate sense of respect. Perhaps it was because his mother had raised him to think of nothing else but, or perhaps he was broken in some way so as to not feel anything at all. When Cassandra de Sable had displayed herself to him so boldly all those nights ago, he had felt nothing but a sense of pity for how she was laying herself about.

He  _knew_  about sex. In the last days that he spent within the Academy’s walls, the graduates had been free to do as they pleased prior to the commencement ceremony. Needless to say, it was a co-educational school and all of the students had largely gone through four years without copulating. It was no surprise then for them to engage in relations even in the face of others.

Aside from walking into wholesale orgies entirely by accident, Darius had heard stories from other candidates and had even been targeted by a few hungry women himself. He didn’t know what to do to  _them_ \- the women who seemed to know what they wanted from him, the women who seemed to derive pleasure from  _using_  him. He didn’t know how to react, how to move and strategize appropriately. He had largely existed in a state of constant hardship that made sex undesirable or detrimental and what happened to him in that final week had made it even more impractical.

By pure biological virtue of his exit medical exam, he had managed to escape the roaming hands and roaming mouths of hungry female officer-candidates. It had not been a pleasant day when Conrad had told him that he had to be circumcised.

“… Does it even matter? “Darius had asked him with a scowl.

“The sausage needs a snip because it’s not really healthy to keep that thing in a wrapper. Don’t look at me like that; I’m not really the one who made that silly rule.” Conrad had shrugged his shoulders at him as he washed his hands. “So as much as I want to say that I  _want_  to torture  _you_  by cutting into  _your_  meat, really, I don’t find it amusing either.”

With his regions feeling absolutely  _balls deep_  in hell, he had felt nothing in that entire week but an immense disdain for anything and anyone and the final term had largely passed with him spitting venom at others who tried to take advantage of him.

Whenever Draven took his toys home then, it was largely up to Darius to see to the woman invariably left alone.

The first time that a woman had been left behind, Darius had been forced, by pure virtue of his mother’s lessons on women and respect, to sit across her and listen to her tale of woe. As the number of females piled up- ten according to his latest count prior to his departure- he had grown to know the story like the back of his scarred hand: she would find herself ‘enchanted’ or ‘charmed’ by the ‘handsome performer’ within the Arena. After some time spent ‘seducing’ her, this performer would then take her to his ‘love nest’ and then ‘leave her behind in a cold bed’.

Of course, once in a while he would have a woman who was used to the treatment and then he would be spared the societal agony of seeing her clothed and fed before he sent them out the door but the women largely were of the doe-eyed innocent persuasion thoroughly sold on the spew that Draven fed to his adoring public.

“You’re a fucked up judgmental prick, y’know that?” His brother had shaken his head at him when Darius had broached the option of taking responsibility for what he had brought home.

“... I fail to see where  _my_  fault lies in this matter.” Darius had stated in a thoroughly humorless tone of voice. “Your treatment of them is  _not_  how our Mother would have wanted you to act towards them.”

“Well, you’re not a shining example of goodness either.” Draven had retorted over his shoulder. “Just fuck off Dar. Give them food and clothes and send them on their way. You’re not going to be here forever.”

“You fail to see my point.” Darius had pushed his cup aside. “My point in the matter is that you are responsible for what you do. I cannot be here forever- yes- so how will you take care of yourself when I am gone?”

“They just walk out.” Draven had replied with a sneer. “Honestly, Dar, it’s not fucking hard.”

“What if they wish to kill you?” Darius had growled out as his mind spilled out ugly visions of his brother’s negligence. “What if they wish to blackmail you? Will you care then?”

Draven’s response then had been to laugh. Darius found himself gritting his teeth and curling his fist at the younger man’s sheer arrogance. “Blackmail the great Draaaaaven- yeah,  _that’ll_  work.”

“Draven-“ Darius had hissed out- but his brother had chosen the moment to raise his hand and interrupt him.

“Look Dar, let me worry about the women, huh?” The younger man had flashed him a smile and while the younger man may have thought himself in the right that time, Darius had felt all the more concerned.

“You are not worrying enough.” Darius had said with a shake of his head. Athenais had taught them better, and even Hystaspes had reinforced her lessons with his own example. There was no real reason to simply leave women to their own devices like that- it was nothing but a show of carelessness and it kept one open to underhanded schemes.

Darius knew his brother was even more hardheaded than he was and pressed on accordingly, but in the end he was forced to drop the subject when Draven stormed out.

With self-confidence came hubris, of course, and that brought Darius’ musings back to the center of the matter, to the real reason why he honestly felt that he no longer understood and could possibly never fully comprehend his civilian brother: the four years had given Draven enough time to develop himself as his own person, but with his return into the younger man’s life came the inevitable comparisons.

 _It’s a pity that you only brought him more grief._  Darius’ pessimism bit at his heels as he shifted from one foot to the other under the sun’s sweltering heat.  _He always wanted to be recognized for what he was and your arrival did nothing but undermine him._   _In the end you cut down what he carefully cultivated for himself._

It was with both delight and anguish that Darius realized Commander de Montfort had not been lying during his final speech on the merits of having attended Boram’s Point.

“The scar on your neck,” The dignified man had said to them all from the grandstand’s podium. His impossibly deep voice had seemed to resonate inside their chests.  “-will open doors for you that Noxus would not even  _think_  of parting for  _normal_  men. With your four years here, you have secured a position for yourself that  **none**  may take away from you. With  _your_  blood, you have forged a key to  _everything_  that she holds apart from the disgusting norm.”

The grizzled warrior had scanned their faces then and despite the stifling heat, they had stared back at him with all the confidence of equals. No longer did they have to avert their eyes. No longer did they have to cower beneath the iron stares. They were all graduates of Boram’s Point at that exact moment. "By sheer virtue of  _surviving_ , you are  _already_  a cut above the rest, the  _best_  and the  _brightest_ , the  _purest_  from the most  **vicious**  Crucible ever conceived in the history of Valoran- you will  **never** ,  _ever_  be normal."

“Most of you will go on to become able commanders,” He had continued. “Some of you will move on to  _earning_  your House names. A few of you will go on to truly change our exalted nation’s history. Regardless of what you may become once you leave the walls of Boram’s Point, know this: you are now part of a brotherhood, and it watches after its own. Show the proof of your indomitable spirit to those who may know of it. They will acknowledge you as their better and will accord to you all that is rightfully yours.”

There had been a pregnant pause as his mouth set in a thin, merciless line.

“ _However_ , there are those who seek to undermine  _us_ , those who try to obtain reward  _without_  prior hardship, without  _due_  toil.  _They_  have not felt the  **flames**  of the Crucible. Be sober, be vigilant- and if asked for proof of your determination, give it to them in  **force**  and let them drown in their own blood.  **Never**  forget what we have taught you: force  _begets_  force. Determination  _breeds_  determination. Your spirit will spread to those you command. Officers, I ask you thusly, what is our creed?”

 **“Strength above all! Exploit every weakness! Defeat your foes with overwhelming force! Fight to the last man! Never surrender!”**  The overwhelming roar emerged from the mouths of the thirty or so graduates as they threw their gloved hands onto their chests in a burst of fervor.  **“True warriors of Noxus will never falter- even in the face of certain death!”**

 **“Strength above all, officers!”**  Commander de Montfort had roared back with a mirror thump of his fist over his beating heart.  **“May _you_  take our Noxus to the heights that she well and truly deserves!”**

Darius had never truly understood that part of the man’s long speech until the first night that he had tried to reap the benefits of his education. It had been during another one of Draven’s Fleshing Arena displays, and he had- by sheer misfortune- lost the ticket that he had paid for. No doubt the work of some street urchin; he had been forced to consider other possibilities. He had never truly broken the rules since he had killed Adrian de Croix, and at that point in time he had found himself weighing Draven’s self-esteem to that of his own principles. There was no doubt in his mind that his brother would come looking for him. There was also no doubt in his mind that he had the will within himself to sneak into the Fleshing Arena. What really mattered and what really put him into a conundrum were the  _means_ \- he was too big a man to  _not_  be noticed, especially in his relatively new clothes and with the mark of his loyalty on his face.

It was when he was contemplating on how to best hide the scar over his jaw that he remembered Ignatius de Montfort’s words, and it was with a brief moment of hesitation that he simply marched up to the door warden and pulled his collar down.

The man had stared at the scar over his throat- about as wide as a matchstick and as long as a pencil- and at the mark of his loyalty on his jaw for a full two seconds before he gestured for Darius to enter a particular door. This door, the lieutenant soon discovered, led to the field box- the most expensive and sought-after seats in the entirety of  _Noxus_.

Needless to say, when Draven had seen him there- the seats were right next to the field after all and it was not at all hard to find him given the telltale patch of white and already intimidating height and build- the younger brother had been beside himself with utter glee.

“You  _paid_  for that!?” Draven had practically shouted at him when the show had ended.

“… In a way.” Darius had been forced to say. He had not been, and still was not, entirely sure if what he had done was something to never be spoken of.

“We’re not eating dinner then!” Draven had said with a disappointed air. “Or do you have some sort of plan? Hells, Dar, if you love me that much, you could at least have fed me first before you fucking spent all our money on the field box!”

He had stared at the younger man, affronted, before he had swallowed nervously. Thanks in part to his training, however, the emotion had never made it on his face.

“… I have a plan.” He had replied slowly. He then tried the technique at a restaurant that he had heard of while he had fallen in line for a ticket- he knew full well that the reservations were all closed and the place was occupied to the very roof.

Still he had persisted in his attempt. With Draven occupied in seducing a nearby waitress, he had talked about obtaining a seat for two inside the hectic place to the maître d’ all the while tilting his head to the right slightly- just enough for the other man to see the scar but not enough to be construed as a strange gesture.

The man had taken one look at it before he had taken two copies of the menu off the rack and babbled at them to follow him inside. Needless to say, their table was somewhere very private, and in the end there was no need to pay for the dinner at all- his attempts at leaving money on the table were met with apologetic bows and flustered but respectful words.

“… Well, I knew you had a plan.” Draven had mused out loud as they walked into the night. “But hell I didn’t think it would be  _that_  good a plan. What’d you do, promise to fuck him under the counter?”

Darius had stared at his brother in absolute, speechless horror.

“… Hey, don’t mind me; I was just voicing out a theory here, bro.” Draven had replied with a helpless shrug. “Ain’t every day that the entire place just suddenly decides to give you free food and a nice pair of seats.”

“What are you implying, Draven?” Darius had asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“I spoke to the waitress, bro.” His brother stopped in his tracks then. Darius had decided then to mirror the movement and turned to face him. It was a good thing they had been in a side alley at the time- no one had been about. “Hells, she said they were fucking  **full to the roof**  and even sex with the Glorious Draaaaaven wouldn’t make her budge. Y’know me-“

“Yes, I do  _know_  you.” Darius had responded irritably- he did not want to be reminded of all those women and all those nights spent being kept awake by noises that came across as annoying. “What is your point?”

“My point is,  _dearest_  brother,” Draven had tilted his head then. “What did  _you_  do that made  _them_  all just decide to give  _you_  the best seat in the house? I mean- I know you graduated from that fancy school- West Point or whatever…”

“Boram’s Point.” Darius had interjected- more out of habit than out of an actual urge to defend his alma mater.

“Yeah, Borat’s Plow.” Draven had finished for him then with a frown. “Whatever. Are you getting me?”

Darius had crossed his arms then, had put his hand over his mouth in thought as he furrowed his brow. It took some time, perhaps more than a minute of weighing through his options, before he determined in the end that it was best to not say anything at all on the  _specifics_  of the matter.

“It is a right,” He had said slowly. “Reserved to officers who graduate from Boram’s Point. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Oh wow, really?” Draven had stared at him, his eyes as wide as saucers. “So you just do something and everyone fucking rolls out the welcome mat for you? Man, that’s  _great_  shit.”

Draven’s words were, at best, a gross oversimplification of what had just occurred and Darius found at that moment that his head was starting to hurt again.

“It came with a price.” He had grunted out.

“That you paid already, huh?” Draven had responded with a measure of amusement.

“… Yes.” Darius had replied, not knowing full well the magnitude of the trap that he was falling into. He had thought that instilling some sort of positive experience with a person who had military training would eventually give his brother incentive to serve as well.

It was, in his mind at the time, the  _correct_  thing to do.

He would be proven wrong- repeatedly. Draven, if anything, knew  _how_  to play people. Apparently, he also knew how to play his own brother faster than  _his_  brother could comprehend  _him_.

Over the next few nights, under the excuse of ‘sibling outings’, Draven had brought him along to brothels and smoking dens, to restaurants surrounded by beautiful women and to raucous halls filled with dancers and an overabundance of alcohol. Each and every time, he would nudge his brother forward, and Darius would sheepishly show his scar in order to have nothing but the very best treatment delivered to them both.

“What does one do in a brothel?” He had asked his brother once as the madam for that particular establishment led them deeper inside.

“Well, you fuck.” Draven had told him amusedly. “It’s really not that hard a concept to grasp, Dar.”

Darius had tried to think then. Perhaps he shouldn’t have placed so much of a premium on thought then. It would have made everything less difficult.

Owing to his status as a graduate of Boram’s Point, the girl given to him that night was very expensive according to Noxian brothel standards- she had a very beautiful face and had a voluptuous body blessed in both the front and in the rear. Her hair was long and dark, and she wore it in braids encrusted with pearls and little silver chains. Her body was tantalizingly clad in elaborate Ionian silk and her cultured voice was kept at a bedroom low. All in all, she was worth the money he  _would_  have paid for- if he had been interested in sex at all.

Darius had looked at her and felt nothing. She had looked back at him and had waited for him to do something. Needless to say, neither of them did and the awkwardness was extremely palpable for her until she had cleared her throat.

“Do I displease you, my lord?” She had asked him softly as her hands wrung nervously in front of her.

“Should I?” Darius had asked with a bemused look on his face.

“You are not touching me, sir.” She had looked down then. “If so, then that means that I have displeased in some way, and that means I have done something wrong.”

He had stared at her for another minute, had tried to feel something and failed.

“Why do you say that?” He had asked her- if anything, it seemed to him then that conversation seemed to make her less mortified at her circumstances.

She had stared at him as if he was the one out of place. “This is a  _brothel_ , sir.” She had piped up helplessly. “You  _have_  to touch me. That is what the madam would  _want_.”

Darius had watched impassively as she stepped forward of her own accord, took his hands in hers and guided them to her breasts. Her skin was very soft, and at this distance he could smell the perfume that she had sprayed on herself prior to meeting him. He had absolutely no idea what to do then, and he had stared at her in mute askance until she had cocked her head to the side expectantly.

He had taken her breasts in his hands and had rolled them in his palms, had wondered at the sensation that he was feeling and at the reaction he was eliciting from her. It had felt nice, he supposed, but was there any real point to it?

Mostly out of a desire to explore, he had decided to play with her nipples, flicking his thumbs up and down the sensitive nubs. At that point she had giggled in his face. “Ah, sir.” She had whispered. “I didn’t think I would see someone more lost than I am.”

His mind had been nothing but a storm of thoughts. Was he supposed to feel something now? He didn’t know why he felt nothing when the expectation obviously pointed to some sort of emotion. He had cleared his throat, had stared at her and let his uncertainty show for only the briefest moment.

“If you would be so kind as to teach me then,” He had tried to say softly. The words had emerged in a somewhat strangled fashion thanks to his attempt at discretion.

It was rather fortunate that she had taken his request literally. The rest of the night had been spent in a similar vein. When she realized that he needed a bit more of an education than her usual clientele, she had been patient enough to show him where and how to please her, and he had decided to humor her purely out of curiosity.

But did he ever feel anything, in that night and in the nights after that when Draven pulled him along to different brothels? He had found himself utterly consumed by boredom each and every night that he had to go with his brother to whorehouses. Unlike Draven, Darius had immense difficulty in comprehending sexual wants, and that left him largely unable to react to advances in the requisite manner. He never felt the supposedly  _animal_  need to claim others as his own, had never seen the point in putting himself inside of them and adamantly refused to do so when they pressed him because he had no desire to waste his time with monotonous movements.

He had largely felt lost and utterly bemused with what he was doing with his hands and his mouth during those trips. That is to say, he never saw any real good in thrusting in and out of a hole- at the time it seemed to him an activity much like sawing wood and pulling his pants down left him in an extremely vulnerable position that brought back feelings of helplessness and impotence that he felt during the Instigation.

For Darius then, copulation was highly illogical. Once he had learned what women liked, however, foreplay proved to be an exercise of control- one that he derived a great amount of pleasure from because he controlled where, when and how a woman would feel at a given point. One could say then that, in the end, the penultimate reason why Darius became  _very_  good at foreplay was because he was morbidly curious and because he felt empowered at whatever control he could glean.

Verily, those women did what they wished with his hands and guided him to the points that made their toes curl and gasped his name but ultimately he was the one that directed their pleasure- he  _controlled_  the level of their ecstasy with his hands and his mouth and the feeling that it gave him was what made foreplay a  _game_. The kind of enjoyment that he derived from everything didn’t lie in being stroked or licked or  _pleased_ , it was all about how  _he_   **controlled**   _them_.

Still, the more times that he humored the women who threw themselves at him, the more he grew to understand that there was something innately wrong with himself. He didn’t know why he found himself reflecting on their motives instead of their bodies as they reached their climax by his hands. He didn’t know why he found their cries for ‘more’ and ‘don’t stop’ to be more engaging than their faces and their breasts and whatever else they had that marked them as ‘attractive’. He didn’t know why he largely felt nothing even though his body was responding appropriately according to the biological books he had read through. He supposed in the end that  _their_  bodies never really mattered or perhaps he never did  _care_.

But why was Darius putting himself through so much trouble? He had honestly wanted to understand  _why_  Draven found such activities as fun and had wished nothing more than to spend time with the younger man because he had given his word to do such. Naturally it came as a shock to the older man when he discovered a few of his schoolmates inside the aforementioned places as well. When those moments had occurred, it was only a matter of time before his brother discovered  _him_  enjoying comforts that went far over the younger man’s head.

In a particularly horrible instance, Darius’ scar had gotten them into a highly sought-after brothel, and Draven had been enjoying the auspices of a particularly beautiful woman when there was a loud commotion in a private lounge to his right and a booming voice practically let the rest of the building know what was happening.

“Oh man, I never thought I’d see the Baton in a dive like this! Fuck me! Or rather, fuck him. Where the hell is Sasha and Sanya? Where are my Freljordian twins? Ah, yes- there they are! Come ‘ere. Only the  _very_  best for the Commander’s Baton! Oh come on, Darius, the words are: ‘you’re  _most_  welcome!’”

“This isn’t truly necessary, Bradston-“ At that moment, Draven had spotted his brother being led away by a pair of ravishing, white-haired, blue-eyed twins in revealing outfits followed by another man with another pair of twins- black-haired and dark-skinned this time- curled about his hip.

Darius had seen  _him_ \- it was evident in the way his eyes widened and how he craned his head back to speak to the man following him. “Quite frankly, Bradston, my brother would be  _more_  thankful for the…  _courtesy_ -“

“Come on, just fuck the whores already!” The other man had said with an encouraging slap on Darius’ ass. If it wasn’t for the fact that there were two women pulling him in the opposite direction, Hystaspes’ eldest would’ve throttled the other graduate to death. “You were always the best at sticking your finger up really wet holes!”

“Bradston, you piece of-“ Any other complaint he had was quickly drowned in his throat when Sanya- or was it Sasha, who could tell really- pressed her lips against his and stuck her tongue straight into his mouth.

Needless to say, Draven had ignored his brother for the rest of the night and when he had emerged from the building in the early hours of the morning, he found his brother in the process of pulling on his jacket- even from a distance he could see the bite marks and the bruises on his already scarred skin.

“Well, fuck me.” Draven had said by way of greeting.

“ **Not a word**.” Darius had gritted out.

“I’ve got an idea for our next sibling outing-“ Draven’s voice had a cheeky tone to it before Darius had given him a level glare by way of reply.

“ **No** ,” Darius had retorted with a nigh rabid snarl. “No,  _I_  will choose the next outing. I have been kind  **enough**.”

“Well, yeah.” Draven had replied with his typical egotism. “But you still had more fun than I did though. Freljordian twins? Can  _I_  have  _them_  next time?”

His brother had made a disgruntled sound in his throat as he walked off.

The next few endeavors had been something like a soothing balm for Darius’ fraying temper, but it had been Draven’s turn then to chafe against what he saw. Instead of alcohol, company and comely women, Darius had taken him to concerto halls and to vaunted theaters, to the prestigious Greenvale Downs to watch the most critical leg in the Noxian Triple Crown.

In the same way that Darius had felt out of his element when he had accompanied Draven to his activities, the younger man felt utterly choked by his brother’s choice of activities. He sulked outside the track during the Greenvale Derby, fell out of his chair while sleeping during the peak of the Blind Man’s Opera and- as a final straw- shouted that the masterpiece of the most highly acclaimed playwright in the state was ‘boring’.

On the final day before Darius had to report to fulfill his conscription, he had decided to take his brother to the theater, and in the end, what had made that night the final straw for Darius’ already delicate temper was that the theater had been occupied with aristocrats that had  _recognized_  him.

Darius had worked for the House of Montpelier before- but never in his life did it occur to him that they would  _remember_  him. When he entered the balcony box with Draven in tow, he had been surprised to see a man struggle to push himself out of his chair at the sight of him.

“Darius! It is Darius, isn’t it?”

Both brothers couldn’t help but stare then as the man wobbled to his feet in a titanic effort to get up. In his haste to meet him, the rich man’s mother-of-pearl and gold binoculars fell to the carpeted floor of the box with a thud and were promptly forgotten.

“Yes sir,” Darius had tried to keep his composure then when he had fully realized who it was he was talking to- Jean de Montpelier, Head of House Montpelier, and the man he had worked for when he was younger all those years ago. Did he remember the forest fire then?

When the balding man took his hand and began to shake it furiously, openly beaming at him all the while, it sent nothing but more questions into the young man’s mind. Wasn’t he forced by the House of Croix to deny him? What had happened? Why was he openly associating with him now? Wasn’t there something to all of this?

“Darius, my dear boy, it’s a pleasure to finally see you in the flesh.” Jean had been nothing but the picture of a grateful man.

 “You grant me too much praise- The House of Montpelier stands much higher than I.” Darius had tried to reply.

 “Ah, but you deserve it so.” Jean de Montpelier had not even pulled his hands from where they were curled about Darius’ scarred palm. “What brings you to Kingston House?”

Pleasantries on pleasantries-  Darius had tried to keep himself focused on de Montpelier’s intentions. At that time, he could discern nothing.

“I must confess, sir, that I do find theatre quite compelling these days, Forgive me,“ And Darius had politely withdrawn his hand then, sweeping it towards him. “I never meant to be so rude- this is my brother, Draven.”

To Darius’ utter shame, Draven had puffed out his chest then, had tried to appear impressive and every bit as regal as his brother. Needless to say, he had failed miserably- he had neither the muscle nor the presence that his brother had.

The aristocrat had stared at his brother briefly- eyeing him like an offering to a particularly violent god. Darius had resisted the urge to blanch when Draven had begun to shirk away. The air in the box had seemed to grow heavier, staler as the aristocrat had extended his hand again.

With growing horror, Darius watched Draven withhold his hand, had stifled the urge to box the whelp on the ears as his younger brother had glared at the aristocrat with nothing but defiance in his dark eyes.

It wasn’t until he had chosen to reach out and thump him smartly on his back with a silent, warning stare that Draven had limply shaken Jean’s hand, mumbling a greeting out of the corner of his mouth before he had stormed away.

“What an impudent whelp.” Jean de Montpelier had said with a curl of his lip when he had been certain Draven was gone.

“… Sir.” Darius had replied helplessly. He hadn’t known what he wanted to do- he had been torn between correcting Draven and throttling de Montpelier for insulting his younger brother. In the end, he had decided to do nothing.

“It truly is saddening to see that you’re related to riffraff like him.” Jean de Montpelier had stared up at him then. “How are you keeping, my boy?”

“… I am quite well, sir.” Darius had replied stiffly.

“Good, good.” The Head of House Montpelier had tilted his head at him then. “I have a proposition for you, that is, if you are looking for sponsors.”

Darius had to literally stop himself from staring blankly at the other man. He had known the system well enough- what had made him so shocked was that Jean de Montpelier was willing to stick his political neck out for the guillotine that was the House of Croix to cut.

Prior to the ascension of Jericho Swain as Grand General, the purchase of officer commissions- essentially the purchase of officer positions using gold or a healthy application of influence- was considered to be common practice. When these commissions were paid by another, more influential person, they were called ‘sponsorships’.

Within the entire spectrum of the Noxian military, only the Navy did not offer buyable commissions at all. The theory then was that advancement through naval ranks was based purely off merit and performance. In practice, however, it was a common saying in the day that naval officers made the best politicians.

In order to purchase a promotion, an officer had to pay for the difference between his rank and the next. What made the entire process so prone to corruption was that the provost marshals in charge of new commissions and promotions within corps possessed the right to refuse purchased commissions.

There are many things that could be said about Jericho Swain’s new Noxus, but at the very least, no one could accuse it of being elitist and extremely biased towards those with current means. To have someone like Jean de Montpelier practically giving him a chance to serve within a real fighting unit- it was a wonder he hadn’t openly gaped at the man yet.

 “You are due to be assigned on the morrow, are you not?” A smile had played on the older man’s lips then.

“Yes sir.” Darius had responded slowly, somehow he had found his tongue again. Jean reached out and gave him a firm pat on the shoulder. Despite the discomfort that the invasion of personal space had given him, he merely stiffened underneath the older man’s touch instead of smashing his face in.

“As the Commander’s Baton, you were given your choice of units, hm?” There had been a light in de Montpelier’s eyes and Darius had felt both apprehensive and excited for whatever proposition he had. “What was your first choice?”

“The Obsidian Hammer, out of the 56th.” Darius had tilted his head then. The unit had its fair share of commendations and disciplinary citations. He had thought it an acceptable beginning. “With hope sir, if the provost marshal for the 56th would be willing to take me, that would be my posting. Otherwise, I would be delegated to the Ebon Hounds, out of the 34th. Failing that, the Crimson Storm, from the 98th.”

“Reputable units, all of them, and I have no doubt that you deserve a commanding position within each of them.” Jean had observed. “However, what if I gave you the leg-up you needed, hm? Everyone knows that the true warriors go with the Black Watch, out of the 101st.”

Darius had stared at him cautiously. “… The Black Watch is indeed a fine fighting unit, sir.” He had been unable to stop his voice from reflecting his hesitation then. He had heard of the Black Watch, had heard of what they did. He had no qualms with serving in such an elite unit- indeed, it was an honor to even be considered for a position within the company- but this seemed like an act of generosity that was highly uncharacteristic of what he had come to expect from Noxian aristocracy.

“But it is beyond your means as of the moment.” Jean de Montpelier had finished for him. Darius had nodded mutely.

“I know of a certain provost marshal from the 101st,” Jean’s voice had changed into a lower, more conspiratorial tone. “If you would visit his office on the morrow, perhaps a posting into the Black Watch would not be too far out of your reach.”

“I’m not quite certain how far my reach would extend in this case, sir.” Darius had responded then. This entire thing had seemed to be too good to be true, and he had felt himself in the right to be cautious.

“There is no need to worry about that.” De Montpelier had said with a laugh and a shrug of his portly shoulders. “I remember what you did for my family, and what you did for the farm. I hadn’t been able to give you your reward then- consider this a gift past due.”

“A posting into one of the finer companies costs about three gold pieces and a considerable deal of influence.” Darius had voiced as he observed the man across him carefully.

“And what do I owe you, hm?” Jean de Montpelier had stared back at him, almost daring him to prove him false.

It was with difficulty then that Darius remembered exactly what he had been denied of. “… Three gold pieces.” He had repeated hoarsely. “… Until-“

“We shan’t speak of that here.” Jean de Montpelier had said with an unnecessarily loud laugh as he had slapped at Darius’ shoulder again. “I shan’t keep you any longer- I do hope you enjoy the show, lieutenant.”

Darius had watched him return to his seat before he had remembered that he still had to see to Draven. When he had found his younger brother later on, the younger man was sitting down with both feet up in the chair regardless of the theatre’s other clientele, both knees tucked under his chin. The rest of the patrons near him had already taken out their binoculars and were pretending that the uneducated heathen in their midst didn’t exist.

His shock then had been drowned under a sea of rage.

“Gods above, what are you doing?” Darius had hissed under his breath as he reached out and pushed Draven’s limbs down. “Cease that infantile sulking at once- that behavior hardly befits a man.”

Draven had made a noise under his breath as he straightened his posture.

“You should be thankful,” Darius had rumbled as he passed him a pair of binoculars to him-it was made of cheaper pewter. “That Jean de Montpelier considers me as a  _friend_. If I had not been there to come to your aid, you would have been evicted from your seat and from the theater for your blatant display of disrespect.”

His brother had not chosen to answer him. Indeed, the younger man had held the tool in his hand and had watched the dimming lights of the runestone lanterns overhead play across the shining silvery surface.

“I never wanted to go here.” The younger man had grumbled under his breath.

Darius had resisted the urge to scream.

“Why didn’t you say such beforehand, then?” Darius’ eyes had seemed to grow cold as the theater fell into absolute darkness. His voice grew deeper with veiled annoyance. “You could have spared me the indignation of apologizing to de Montpelier on your behalf.”

“I didn’t want to say no.” Draven had mumbled as he shied away from his brother. “You seem to like being here.”

“Fool.” Darius had not been able to stop himself from snarling at him. Even with Montpelier’s offer, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from thinking that his brother had to stop being such a child.

“I can sit quie-“ Draven had begun, but his brother’s hand was already on his shoulder, nudging him out of the chair slowly.

“No, there is no point in sitting through this if you do not wish to.” Darius had growled at him. “I will watch at another time.”

“But you really wanted to-“

His brother’s massive hand had nudged him again, and the tap was not at all gentle. “Get out.”

Draven had remained quiet until they had made a fair bit of distance from the theater. His brother had abruptly stopped in his tracks.

“… What is it now?” Darius had growled at him.

“What was up with that?” Draven had turned his head to stare at him as his hands curled into fists.

“What was  _what_?” Darius had retorted acidly. “Whatever business I had with de Montpelier is none of your concern.”

“I think it  _should_  fucking concern me.” Draven had spat back. “He totally fucking hates me and you stood by and didn’t do anything!”

“Why  _would_  I?” Darius had raised an eyebrow then. Even though his brother’s voice was starting to become louder, he had kept his at a lower tone. “You are old enough to determine for yourself what proper behavior  _should_  and  _shouldn’t_  be.”

“That fat bitch fucking hates me and you didn’t fucking do anything! I’m your motherfucking  **brother**!” Draven had shouted. “I did all that boring shit  _for_   **you** , and even then, you wouldn’t even fucking lift a hand to  _help_  me? Not even to tell the fat fuck off for  _insulting_  me?”

“Did  _what_?” Darius’ voice had grown darker than before. “ _Embarrass_  me in front of a crowd numerous times?  _Insulted_  everything that I wanted to enjoy? What  _else_  have you  _not_   _yet_  done?”

Draven had reeled back- for whatever reason Darius couldn’t bring himself to particularly care. He was going to be deployed tomorrow- why was he even wasting his time with a pointless fight born from his brother’s ego? “Who the  **fuck**  are you to talk about  _insults_ , huh?” Draven had screamed at him. “Who fucking  **outdid**  everything I tried to do? Who just had to do some magical military shit to get himself laid and fed for fucking free?  **I WORKED FOR WHAT I OWN**!”

Darius’ fists had opened and closed and he had begun to grit on his teeth. Still, he hadn’t wanted to strike, hadn’t seen the point in any of this at all.

“Do you mean to tell me that I didn’t work for this?” Darius had reached out and pulled down his collar, exposing the long scar that ran over one side of his throat. His voice had been shaking from his withheld rage. “That I didn’t bleed for this? That I didn’t just throw away my life for a few lap dances and a free keg of beer? What kind of shallow person are you?”

“You sure as  **hell**  didn’t starve like I did.” Draven had sneered back as placed his hands on his hips and parted his legs so as to stand defiant in Darius’ eyes. “You sure as  **hell**  didn’t have to fucking deal with other little shits like I did.  **I had to fucking do everything while you were gone!** ”

“What are you even trying to say?” Darius had shot back. “You’re trying that argument with  _me_? The person who babysat you until you could stand on your own two feet? Are you seriously contemplating arguing  _your_  case in front of  _me_?”

Faced with mounting evidence against him, instead of admitting to his mistake, as he should have, Draven had shaken his head and had walked off, shouting over his shoulder. “Fuck  _this_! Fuck  _you_! I’m sick and tired of being second in line! I’ve already been there for most of my fucking life, I don’t fucking need this!”

Darius had wanted nothing more than to throttle him to death then, but he had stayed his hand. Instead of running after his brother as he would have done all those years ago, he had watched him leave. Arguing with the other man,his pragmatic mind had told him then, was utterly pointless when he was going to be conscripted soon. He  _knew_  he was in the right with everything inside of him- why should Draven’s opinion bother him?

Darius hadn’t felt any particular inclination to return home soon after that. He had waited out the dawn at a nearby hostel, and then when he was absolutely certain that Draven would be asleep, he had returned to the apartment, gathered up his things in a single canvas bag and then had left.

 _I only wanted to understand him._  The thought crossed his mind again. He shifted his grip on the bag from one arm to the other, looked down at his sweating palm and at the lines that crisscrossed his flesh.  _But… I don’t think I can anymore._

His brother had grown into his own man- that was true enough, but what he  _did_  with himself, and what he found as  _satisfying_ \- Darius suppressed the urge to sigh and felt the trail of sweat cascade down his back. In his mind, it wasn’t what his parents would’ve wanted.

In fact, none of this was what his parents would’ve wanted, but he was  _here_   _now_ , and he had to do  _something_  with what he had  _now._  He could only hope that he had done enough. It was horrible to end things that way with Draven, but he found that it was immensely difficult for him to care for the other man at the moment.

 _Maybe I just can’t see it anymore. Being a civilian is just… I don’t know._  He told himself as the line moved slowly forward.  _Draven has his own life, and I have mine. He’s alive, he’s… enjoying himself and he’s… doing what he feels is best for himself, why should I let all of that bother me when I have my own affairs to look after? He’s old enough. I did what I could. It’s not my fault if he fucks up, it’s…_

He let out a breath and looked up at the cloudless blue sky. Despite himself, he wondered if his brother was awake and eating, if the younger man even ate anymore. The only thing Darius had learned was that his brother seemed to subsist purely on alcohol, the love of his ‘fans’ and the auspices of whores. It made his head hurt, just thinking of such an aimless and chaotic life.

_I shouldn’t even try anymore, not when I can’t understand it._

* * *

**Author's Note:**  ahmg well that took it's time. Yes, this is a chapter filled with awkwardness aplenty, but then again as with before, I can't just say 'hey he did so and so' and expect you to understand instantly. Nope. Gotta have all that hawkward.

Anyway, where was I- oh yes. There's a ton of foreshadowing here, as well as references to earlier chapters. Have fun.

I don't really have much to say, other than I honestly hope that Kitae won't mess up Noxus' lore too much.

addendum:

_Q: Why does Draven feel so one-sided here? He's not just all about women._

Quite honestly, I'm not quite sure where I went wrong here.

It's not like Draven's not doing anything that he's not supposed to be doing as of the moment. He's nothing like his brother at this point in time- he's not conscripted yet, he's been left to his own devices and he's enjoying what he wants to enjoy. He's grown from this lanky little kid reliant on his brother to a guy who knows what he's worked for, who knows what he likes and does whatever he wants because he feels that he's rightfully earned it, so I don't really see where I went wrong with Draven.

This is his life as of the moment, yes. I never said that he wasn't strong here. He has a job, he has a home. He's been alpha dog for most of two years. He enjoys society for what it is because he feels himself entitled to take what he's worked for. It's also important to note that he's seventeen here- he's still riding out his puberty and the hike in hormones and sexual curiosity with it. Does it mean he'll stay that way? No, this isn't Draven's final form yet.

_Q: Why does Darius suddenly enjoy theater?_

He's been with aristocrats for most of his academic life and they rubbed off him in more ways than one. A way for people to improve their vocabulary and speech also is to go to the theater and to take note of how people speak. That is to say, he uses it mostly to improve himself. He's not in it for the drama, he's in it for the language and how exactly can you focus on speech when your brother likes to interrupt everyone and everything?

As for horse racing and the opera- he's always been a curious boy. He's always wanted to know what and how things are supposed to work.

Improvements in speech bring with it an improvement in bearing. At this point in time, most of the higher-ranked officers that Darius has a very high opinion of (Strongbow, di Castellamonte, de Montfort) have both a strong bearing and linguistic expertise on top of their already considerable skills as a warrior. Simply put- he's trying to emulate them.

_Q: Why does Draven take Darius to brothels and why does Darius take Draven to the theater?_

Draven takes him to brothels because that's something that he perceives as fun and he thought Darius would enjoy himself too. Darius took Draven to the theater because he wanted to improve his vocabulary, not necessarily because he wanted Draven to enjoy himself.

Essentially what you need to remember in this chapter is that these are two people who have not seen each other in four years and they're both just smashing their faces together and trying to get along and failing miserably.


	18. Man's Errant Wolf

_Between what should and what should not be_

_Everything is liable to explode. Many times_

_I was told 'who has no land has no sea'. My father_

_Learned to fly in a dream. This is the story_

_Of a sycamore tree he used to climb_

_When he was young to watch the rain._

_Sometimes it rained so hard it hurt. Like being_

_Beaten with sticks. Then the mud would run red._

**Sleeping Trees (Fady Joudah)**

* * *

**NINE MONTHS LATER…**

From the local wildlife's perspective it was a thing of curiosity to see a man trying his hardest to  _not_  be seen, to  _not_  be known. After all, there were about a hundred thousand of the bipedal creatures some distance away doing what their kind did best- that is, being a noisy and disrespectful mob of bald primates as they sharpened their artificial claws and prepared themselves to destroy an opposing tribe.

Like ants the humans scurried frantically about their tent city, digging latrines and defensive lines through the soft ground, burning animal fat to produce radiant but hurtful flames and coating their flying barbs with poison gleaned from the guts of flame-colored amphibians. For this one man to have separated from the rest then, to have chosen to remain silent and still in the semi-solid clay despite the tall stinging grass that surrounded him- the animals close by welcomed his silence and his respect.

He was joined by another of his tribe, and the animals briefly watched this new man in trepidation. After all, he like the rest, enclosed in a cold shell that marked him outside of what was natural, smelled of spilt blood that called to the more carnivorous beasts of the floodplains, unlike the one who had chosen to accept it. It was difficult for the other to lie low, because his carapace hardly gave him as much freedom as the other's did and made grinding noises that hinted at another layer of metal underneath, but when he showed no inclination to do anything else, the fauna decided that this new creature was not a thing to fear. They resumed their lives as if the two never existed, and more time passed in peace before the first of the man-creatures deigned to speak.

"You interrupted the birds." The man that wore leather and cloth noted. His vibrant red hair was mostly hidden underneath a muddied and torn cloak, his frigid green eyes warming for a brief moment as he pushed himself a little bit off the ground, adjusting his garments to make room.

"It matters not. They're singing again." The newcomer responded- his hair was black like his armor save for a white patch atop his right eye, his face dirtied and laden with old wounds like the dents and scratches on the metal plates that covered him so- a scar atop his right jaw reaching up to the lower folds of his eye, and a jagged trail that started from his left cheek, skirting the edge of his eye to stop at his forehead.

"It matters very much if the Demacians were looking for us." The fiery-haired human pulled down the brown mask that covered the lower half of his face, exposing a youthful face and the slightest hint of a smile. "But it seems as if they are content to lie back for the moment. You should be thankful that birds are nothing but simple creatures." He said simply.

"Birdseed and quiet," The young man replied as he pulled something out from the black leather satchel he had by his side- a map, folded many times and stained with brown in places where the water-resistant layering gave way to the inevitable encroachment of blood and dirt. "That is all they need."

The leather-clad man laughed softly then as he pulled a nearby corkboard closer. "Have a look." He implored as he pulled a pair of binoculars over his head, handing the battered implement to the black-haired youth next to him.

If one was a bird, the corkboard would be a series of shining pins that would look marvelous in any nest. But if one looked at it as a human being did, one would have been able to read the markings along the side, and one would be able to understand what it represented: a military map, complete with grid designations, of the Zara Floodplains, located due east of the Bubbling Bog, on the other side of the Serpentine River.

There were twenty two pins embedded into the map, and for something used by a scout, it was meticulously organized and easy to read: the pins served as indicators, color-coded according to troop strength and origin. Warm colored pins across the curve of the river stood in for Demacian soldiers with density marked by reds and oranges. Yellows marked out artillery positions on the rearguard of the legions assembled, vibrant violets depicted mage formations along the fringes of the field. Cool colored pins ranging from light blue to dark green stood for the Noxian presence in the Zara Floodplains. In between them all, drawn in delicate almost spiderlike lines, red and blue arrows ran across the battlefield- dotted troop movements and thick-lined supply trains with probable directions marked in pencil. It was a veritable bed of information that any scout- Demacian or Noxian- would have been glad for.

The young man studied the pattern of pins on the corkboard then, frowning at some minor detail that only he found displeasing as he swept his hand across the water resistant surface. After some time spent staring through the binoculars at a distant cloud of dust along the horizon, he quietly moved a pin forward a full grid square- it was, in his professional opinion, too uniform to be made by nature. In addition, the dark clouds above hinted at an incoming deluge rather than a column of vengeful wind.

"… Mhm. That is just about right- who taught you how to read a map?" The red-haired human raised an eyebrow good-naturedly as the younger of his species took out a marker from his pouch, marking his battered map to reflect the corkboard.

"You did, sir." The black-haired human responded easily as he pulled the binoculars over his head and offered them back to their owner.

"I  _did_." The man nodded his head sagely as he shifted his weight to one side in order to grant his elbow some reprieve. The mud caked along his archer's brace and it took a bit of effort to brush it all off without disturbing the birds singing nearby. "If you were looking for your picket, you've gone a long way- five miles or so would bring you walking straight into a Demacian patrol."

"I know where the Black Watch laid down the tent," The black-haired human responded slowly, with the glint of indignation in his eye cleverly veiled. "But I had heard last December that Boram's Point had emptied and that you were here, Assistant Instructor. I had thought… may I speak freely?"

"We are no longer in the Academy, and you are no longer a candidate, Lieutenant Darius." The red-haired man said as he took his binoculars back. "Outside of Boram's Point, I merely hold two years' seniority over you. We are the same rank. Speak as you will."

"…  _Lieutenant_  Strongbow." The youth corrected himself then. "Yes sir."

"Mhm. As for the rumor-  _yes_ , Boram's Point has emptied." Strongbow tilted his head. "This is the last war, after all. Everything that  _can_  be settled  _will_  be settled, and Darkwill will not take anything less than an absolute and lasting victory. To be allowed to fight in this final clash against our old enemy- we all took it as a sign of his trust in our abilities."

"Then it is true- that there will be an Institute of War soon after this?" Darius blinked and stared at him. "I… I had thought it  _impossible_."

"A 'League of Legends'." Strongbow corrected him with a disdainful snort. "It sounds all so very Demacian, filled with propaganda and false esteem."

Darius shook his head and sighed heavily. "… I wonder what made them agree to it."

"We stand on the precipice of change. A peacetime Noxus would be interesting indeed." Strongbow shrugged. "But you are not alone in your thoughts, lieutenant. I never thought I would see it occur in  _my_  lifetime- only twenty-five years ago, Darkwill declared our participation in the Fifth Rune War. This new League would result in nothing short of a riotous climate for us. It pains me to say that Demacia will have an easier time shifting itself to accommodate it."

The dark-haired youth's eyes widened slightly in open surprise. "What do you think will happen then?"

The older man gave a sigh then, stared out into the valley as the animals went about their business- birds took to wing seeking warmer and calmer climates, ants gathered supplies for the incoming storm, squirrels poked their heads curiously from nearby hollows- it was almost as if the two humans were not present- nature carried on, with or without them.

"… Honestly, there are too many things to think about. If one would consider them all..." Brow furrowed thoughtfully, gloved hands tapping a pattern onto the soft earth, Strongbow chewed at the corner of his lip before he continued. "There is the House of Cairne's coalition to deal with- they have always opposed Darkwill's support for the creation of the League. Our merchants  _would_  welcome the peace- we may see more variety in our markets then, and perhaps lowered prices as well. I do not know if conscription will still be an acceptable and economical option, given that conflict would be restricted to those so-called 'Fields of Justice'. What point is there in maintaining a standing army if only a select few would represent us- other than keeping it as a bloated and expensive sheathed blade? And the ban on magicks as well- we have always been the best at what the accord intends to render as illegal."

"This League sounds like a Demacian ploy to weaken us, sir." The younger man commented vehemently. "We should never have accepted the accord."

"It sounds all very disgusting." His companion admitted. "But perhaps it is for the best. You cannot deny the effect that magicks have wrought on the land. We saw the dead rise and consume the Glorious First at Jacob's Ford- they are calling it the Howling Marsh now. At Vesquenhaff, the Demacian's poor grasp of magic vaporized their entire flank, the 9th Standard and the entire countryside with it. To continue down this path would bring Valoran crashing down on our ears. It is better to be  _part_  of such a thing than to go against it- that way, we may yet have a hand in terms that would have destroyed us."

" _Still_ \- if it would ruin us, if it would  _constrict_  us so," Darius reasoned with a deepening frown. "How would it be for the best?"

Strongbow shrugged his shoulders again- obviously, despite his seniority, the archer did not seem to know much either. "Who are  _we_  to question what Boram intends to do? We cannot see all the threads that connect this web. We cannot know what the spider plans if we are nothing but its legs. As infantry, we can only see so far before the fog of war clouds our eyes. Only the Joint Council knows."

Composed of five Generals and five Admirals, the Joint Council were both the highest judicial court in Noxus and the Grand General's circle of advisers. The Joint Council, the Hand of Noxus, and the Grand General formed High Command and only the Grand General was able to make decisions that affected the entire chain of command. To be a General then was to be part of Noxus in her  _entirety_ , given a hand in shaping his people, put into a position filled with so much power in even the softest of his words. Darius did not know it yet, but he would become part of that elite clique and above it.

Of course, the doom of the future was just that- in the future. Darius was only a lieutenant, and a fresh one at that. His duties were to see to the well-being of his troop and to execute the orders of his company commander- the continued prosperity and strength of an entire city-state were the least of his concerns as of the moment.

Darius was, for the time being, one of the lowest rungs of the ladder of authority within Noxus, and it was clear from the way that the scar on his jaw tightened slightly when he gritted his teeth that he did not think highly of his superiors at all. "I do not trust the generals, sir. Or rather… I do not trust Montolieu with all that I have seen."

Strongbow tilted his head then, a strange light in his eyes. Was he considering the younger man's words to be treacherous, or truthful? It was hard to tell. "We haven't had a disastrous engagement thus far- the assaults on Belvoir Castle and Jacob's Ford were decisive engagements. You are threading the fine line that divides criticism from calumny. Elaborate."

The young man swept his hand about, glancing down at the corkboard and at his stained map. "If we are to win this final war, sir… Montolieu has made several mistakes here: we are building trenches in a floodplain- what barricades we have made would not hold against artillery. The incoming storm would mean that the Serpentine would swell, and we may see a flood overwhelm our position rather than the Demacians."

"The Demacians are in no better position." Strongbow pointed out. "They make camp at the Bubbling Bog."

"But their heavy infantry companies and artillery batteries are located due north, where the ground is more solid." Darius argued. "Our companies and batteries are scattered about the floodplain with no clear pattern and with absolutely  _no_  regard for movement- if the enemy attempts to take this position  _now_ , they will find it an easy assault. The mud is making it hard to move our artillery, and more than one corps has experienced delays with movement across the unsteady plain. General Montolieu has only been  _lucky_ \- we cannot rely on that all the time. Surely you can see that we are at a disadvantage with regard to our positions,  _sir_."

Strongbow observed him for a moment before he pulled a wrapped piece of jerky from his pouch, offering it silently to his former student. "Eat." He advised.

"… I'm not hungry." Darius responded with a disappointed mutter. "Sir-"

Strongbow did not relent, refusing to remove the ration from his protégé's face until the younger man took it grudgingly, tearing the waxed paper covering before he savagely tore into the smoked and dried meat.

"Now," Strongbow said slowly as the young man chewed the tough ration. "Think of what you said, and how we can turn all of  _that_  to our favor."

Darius made a noise in his throat as he gnawed on the meat like a cow chewing cud. He spent a considerable amount of time like this before he finally decided to speak- until he had chosen to do so, Strongbow spent the silence sedately observing the clouds of dust across the floodplains.

"… If we can goad them on; if we can have the Demacians enter the plains  _with_  us…" Darius began. His words were hesitant at first, but gained strength and speed the longer he poured out his thoughts and the more he saw approval thaw his former instructor's eyes. "And if the 3rd and 5th Standards can somehow outflank them…"

"You're placing a heavy dependence on what-ifs." Strongbow noted when he finished laying out his design. "Not to mention that your strategy is something straight out of the Academy's handbook."

"But it  _is_  sound," Darius said helplessly as he stared at his former instructor. "Sir. It  _will_  work."

"In theory, it would-  _if_  all your officers are in agreement and in harmony with each other's actions." Strongbow remarked- his voice was not heated, but it  _was_  firm. "This is the real world. Think of what we have,  _right now_. Have you been observing the camp as you  _should_?"

"Observing camp  _politics_." Darius' lip curled derisively. "Yes sir, however it is all nothing but pointless bickering."

"You forget how fickle humans are. We need  _incentive_  to perform according to expectations." Strongbow countered gently. "Pointless camp politics, you say- but have you been paying attention at all, Lieutenant?"

Darius sighed as Strongbow pressed him on with an inquiring look. "… General Montolieu and most of the company commanders, Captain de Roquefort in particular, cannot come to an agreement." He admitted. "Brigadier-General Travert is overcautious and wary of coordinating with Rear-Admiral Lachance, and the rest of the cavalry echo his concerns to some extent-"

"Due to?"

"The naval barrage a week ago when we were still positioned close to the Freljord, where the fleet could reach us with the offshore batteries." Darius replied. "Most of Travert's cuirassiers were annihilated as we moved south and he is bitter towards Lachance for the loss of his men."

"… Mhm. Succinct enough." Strongbow quirked his eyebrows. "And what of the men? Have you put their exhaustion into consideration? Their hesitation when faced with their superiors? You are in their shoes."

"The men are exhausted, demoralized, but still, they dare not refuse." Darius retorted automatically. "They are  _conscripted_. They have no choice but to obey whatever inane decision Montolieu puts forth- whether they live or die is irrelevant."

"We are  _all_  conscripted men. That is the nature of Noxus." Strongbow corrected. "You fail to see that the only difference between you and them is that you had the opportunity to have an  _education_. Simply think, how would you see this situation, if you had not the four years under Captain di Castellamonte's wing, if you never went through the fires of the Crucible? Most of these men are, by comparison, largely uninitiated, unprepared. Lachance is from the Merchant Marine Institute- he hardly has the bearing or intelligence of Admiral Blackbourne- who graduated with the Flagstaff at Severn Academy. De Roquefort is Boram's Point, same as you and I, but he did poorly in comparison to us and even de Montolieu knows this. Travert, as respectable as he is to have risen thus far from a humble commission in the Basic Infantry School, knows very little of grand strategy."

Darius swallowed the lump of meat in his mouth with a minute grimace.

"You graduated as Baton. De Montolieu will respect you for it but de Roquefort will disdain you for it." Strongbow said with an unreadable look at his former student. "Your roots lie in poverty, same as Travert and most of the senior conscripted. Lachance will not listen to soldiers, but he is beholden to Blackbourne, who will listen to De Montolieu because he  _must_. Remember that the men look to the chain of command for reassurance, order and  _purpose_. As officers we must answer their volatile and infectious doubt with a firm hand and a steady mind. Now, what can you do?"

The corner of Darius' lip lifted up in a smile as his eyes lit up with the realization that there was something he could do to change their circumstances. "… Ah. Thank you sir."

Strongbow returned the smile with one of his own before he pulled the mask back up his face. "I trust you will do what is expected of you, lieutenant."

"Still, I do not see the point in holding petty grudges when our lives and the success of this campaign weigh far more than reputation and the paltry corpses of men and horses." Darius muttered under his breath as he pushed himself up from the soft earth, running hands over his armor to brush the clumps of clay off his front. "I shall take my leave, sir, before we die from their collective stupidity."

"If all the officers were as practical as you, lieutenant-" Strongbow said with a chuckle as he turned back to observing the Demacians gathering in the distance. "We would never have arrived at this point."

"If only." Darius retorted.

"It would make for an excellent birthday present," Strongbow said cheerily over his shoulder. "If you could convince them to cease their stupidity and perhaps secure a victory for us in this final campaign- I for one would like to return to the comforts of Boram's Point,  _intact_."

Darius chuckled and shook his head as he left.

His birthday didn't matter to him. All he wanted was to survive.

A few days ride from where Darius was huddled in the trenches at Zara, Draven was flipping axes to the sound of an enraptured crowd, but his mind was far from his work at the moment. He certainly deserved a shiny trophy, with his face on it of course, given the way that he was able to maintain his winning smile despite the resentful thoughts in his head.

There was a part of him that  _regretted_  snapping at Darius, even if it was a very silly part that mostly remembered long nights and warm rubs on the head. Darius had done nothing but sacrifice for him. Working in whatever job he could get his hands on, giving him the bigger share of the food, clothing him with whatever he could scrape together- this part of Draven knew he had no right to say those words at all, but then again the rest of him had felt it rather justified.

After all, Draven had wanted to show Darius how much he had changed, to shove it into his older brother's face that he had made something by himself, that he had built a life that made him  _happy_.

But  _somehow_ , he didn't know how in hell Darius had managed to do it but he did, his older brother had gotten under his skin, had managed to pick away at his life and obtained  _for himself_  everything Draven could have possibly wanted- and by the gods, the man didn't  _share_.

Darius had whined about his 'perks' enough times that Draven had learned to tune it out- oh, he had paid for his rights, he had done enough, he had never wanted to have all the nice things for  _himself,_ why would he be interested  _at all_  in tucking into a warm clit on a cold night- but Draven knew he was lying  _somehow_.

After all, Draven was  _always_  right. And besides, who in the world didn't  _like_  tucking into a warm clit on a cold night? Darius might have turned his nose up at it, but really, the only thing his brother needed to unwind with was a good fuck.

His brother had changed so much, he barely recognized the man. As the days had gone by Draven had come to see that it wasn't just his voice or his eyes or his clothes-  _no_ , Darius had become more stringent, less flexible. He always woke up damnably early, went to sleep at ten in the latest, puttered about the house cleaning and fixing and always,  _always_  lecturing him about keeping things clean and orderly- he had  **never**  been such a noisy mother hen.

And principles! Those were also new- Darius never had any qualms before on how Draven carried himself, never voiced objections on how he lived except for maybe two separate occasions- but now Darius did nothing but complain and lecture seemingly every day and every other hour- 'no, that was not how our mother raised us', 'no that was not how the world worked', 'how did you even live this long', 'you can't stay blissfully ignorant all the time'.

Draven was  _not_  ignorant. He was an  _adult_. His stupid older brother had been nothing but a persistent, condescending  _prick_  and it was high time that  _he_  gave the man  _his_  own share of lecturing. That big lug had it  **coming**!

He was so deep in his thoughts that he almost missed one of his blades- now  _that_  wouldn't do, how could he get today's pay if he missed a blade, it was Darius' fault for distracting him. He managed to regain his balance just in time and managed to finish his act without any more mishaps. As he walked away from the bloody sands of the Fleshing Arena, someone suddenly took a hold of his shoulder.

"Hey!" As soon as he saw that the person was a man, a ready snarl crept up to his face. Did  _no one_  remember rule number one?

"Only  _women_  get to fucking touch the Draven." He spat. "Didn't you hear my rule number one back in the arena?"

The man- brown-haired and blue-eyed with a neatly trimmed beard and a raised brow- stared at him for a moment as if he was the insane person in the room before he shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

"… Draven of Garnet Ward?" The man's tone of voice was much like Darius'- dripping with some sort of withheld condescension. But at least his brother seemed to make an effort to hide it. This man's displeasure and disapproval radiated in waves.

"Who the fuck is asking?" Draven responded with a sneer.

"My name is Serafin, of the House of Kovac," The man began.

"Well, you ain't anyone to me." Draven responded with a flip of his head. "Who the fucking hell gave you the right to touch me anyway? Sure as hell ain't me."

"… I am adjutant to Lord Warden Hervé and Provost Marshal of Garnet Ward, to which you currently claim residency." The man added despite Draven's interruption. He stared up and down at him for a moment- Draven felt himself bristle at the rude inspection- and consulted a clipboard before continuing. "You are brother to Darius, son of Hystaspes, of Iron Ward, and Athenais, of no recorded residence prior to her naturalization- is that information correct?"

Draven leered at him for a moment. He felt quite like a rabbit in a snare, helplessly caught in a trap that he had absolutely no idea about. "… What in the flying fuck are a 'Lord Warden' and a 'Provost Marshal'?"

"Are you  _stupid_?" Serafin retorted bluntly.

"Who the  _hell_  are you?" Draven repeated. It was almost as if he was being dragged somewhere- but what the hell was going on?

"… You, sir, are a moron." The Lord Warden's adjutant shook his head and sighed. "A Lord Warden is the man that your district selected- and subsequently chosen by Our Lord Darkwill- to lead your Ward. He has only been in office this past year- did you  _never_  go to the closest selection office when the voting period was held?"

"Uh, no." Draven replied, feeling steadily infringed upon as the seconds passed. "No, I never fucking voted. There are  _votes_?"

"You  _simpleton_." Serafin curled his lip at him- much like Darius always did when faced with something he found displeasing. "I should have the constabulary apprehend you."

"Hey  **jerkface** , I ain't breaking a law!" Draven barked back at him as he gathered himself.

"If there was a law against stupidity, I think Lord Warden Hervé would pass it immediately." Serafin drawled in reply. "Are you Darius' brother or not?"

"I'm the one and only  _Draaaaaaaaven_ \- Darius ain't anything." Draven thumped on his chest and bared his teeth.

"… Are you Draven or  _not_ , because gods help me, I  _will_  call on the constabulary to imprison you for the rest of your life if you are  _not_." Serafin responded with equal venom. " **No**  more games,  **no**  more displays. You are  **out**  of the arena and in prison if you refuse to answer me: are you Darius' brother or not?"

"Yeah, whatever, I am." Draven replied grudgingly. "What the fuck is this about?"

"Consider this your one week's notice." The man pulled a paper from his clipboard and gave it to him. "You are hereby called, in the name of Our Lord Darkwill, to report to the Korovino Redoubt for training."

"… Training for… wait, you're  **conscripting**   _me_?" Draven reeled back, the paper in his hand already crumpling into a ball as he stared at the man in shock. "Me? Do you even know what the fuck I  _do_? I have a  _job_ \- why the fuck would you conscript  _me_? Don't you just pick up those poor, drunken fuckers?"

"What kind of  _cave_  have you been living in?" Serafin asked him as he stared at him in disbelief. "Everyone must serve.  **Everyone**. There are no exceptions to the rule."

"But I-" Draven stammered as he felt the walls of the world close about his mind. Everyone had to be conscripted? He had heard Darius tell him that before, but he had dismissed it to be another one of his brother's ramblings. The military?  _Him_?

 _And why not?_ He found himself thinking.  _Why not enter the military?_

Sure as hell, he could upstage Darius  _there_. His brother had always gone on and on about how  _he_  would never survive boot camp, about how  _he_  lived elsewhere in his mind- if Draven could dominate the military, he could beat Darius at his own game and make him see that he wasn't the stupid one, that he deserved  _more_  respect from the stupid lug.

"How long?" Draven said- his voice hung a little and sounded strained, but he shook his head as he tried to mentally reset. "And where am I going after that?"

"Six years minimum, with the initial two week training program not included in your service." Serafin responded automatically- he seemed to be glad for some decent conversation- though his tone of voice left much to be desired. "As for where you would be assigned soon after, I haven't the faintest idea- it would depend on your performance during the training period. As Provost Marshal, my duty is only to call others to conscription. The rest would be handled by Provost Marshals of the Corps themselves."

"What about Borat's Plow?" Draven offered.

"… Excuse me?" The official looked quite ready to gag on his own spit.

"Oh, uh. Boredom's Pint. Uh. Point. That thing." Draven waved his hand about. "That place where they beat the shit out of you to give you nice things at the end of it."

Serafin stared at Draven as if the younger man was infected with a sort of frothing disease, edging slowly and carefully away.

"Hey, I'm asking you something." Draven frowned at him.

"… If you are speaking of Boram's Point," The adjutant seemed to have gathered his wits. "It has been emptied. Only substitutes remain on the grounds to cater to the next batch of recruits- the rest of the main staff are on the fields of battle as we speak. Either way, what do you care? The recruitment season ends next month, and only candidates with due recommendations and sponsorships would be accepted."

"Well, where the hell do I get one?" Draven demanded. He wouldn't be upstaged. He'd go to Boram's too. Darius wasn't going to upstage him  _there_.

"… I feel as if I'm talking to an infant." Serafin said as he massaged his temples. " _You_  do not find  _them_.  _They_  find  _you._ "

"I'm right here." Draven found himself saying. "I'm Darius' brother. Why did  _he_  get picked, but not me?"

"Maybe it's because you're  _stupid_." Serafin sneered with a pointed stare at him. "Maybe it's because you aren't  _capable_. Maybe it's because you're mentally insane. Whatever the reason, you were considered as unfit for Boram's Point by those in authority, and now the training camps  _have_  to accept you and your inflated ego and juvenile behavior. I wouldn't envy them the duty."

Draven turned the words in his head- oh, petty insults did very little to dampen his spirits. It was more on the fact that he apparently had been passed over again that irked him. Well, that little comment wouldn't stop him. Those people just didn't know what the hell they were missing. He'd show everyone. He could take Darius at his own game. And then  _finally_ , he'd be recognized to be his own man- and everyone would see that he was a thousand times better than Darius the stiff log, Darius the clucking mother hen.

He'd be  _so_  much better.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  Since he didn't have the formal training and education that Darius had gone through, Draven is pretty much nothing but a kid with a growing ego, and it showed in the way that he responded when he was challenged- just the way a kid might act: petty and ignorant. I don't really have much else to say, unless something has to be clarified somehow. In any case, the chapter before this was amended to include a short FAQ for questions that arose due to the portrayals thus far, so check that out if you haven't read it yet.


	19. Skinner's Box

_To raise a child break it_

_like a wild horse_ _—_

_bend the will: get up,_

_get dressed._

_Did you mean to be this way?_

_Did you mean to become_

_something you didn't mean?_

_You didn' become_

_something you didn'_

_mean did you?_

**Mosaic (Tim Seibles)**

* * *

**THIRTY-TWO DAYS LATER…**

Life in the military, particularly in the temporary camps when there was no fighting to be had, was not how Darius had imagined it to be. Boram's Point had readied him for the hardships involved with the weight of responsibility and command but it had not prepared him at all for how life would have been with the army once his commission had been given to him.

In the very first place, he had not expected military life to be what it was- convoluted by processes beyond him, unbearably tedious and driven by intrigue and greed in equal measure. All he knew of it before was that it was filled with battle, that his actions would define his rank and his reputation.

He was not fully prepared for immeasurable frustration during deployments, of being told to do something very quickly or to always be ready, and then to be ordered to wait for long periods of time after that. He would be told to create a defensive trench and in the next hour or so he would he told to stop digging, fill in whatever he had managed to do and then to move on. These orders were given repeatedly- because the army was always moving somewhere, and clashed regularly with the Demacians as it did so.

His unit was not a skirmishing one after all- the Black Watch were a frontline force and nothing short of an absolute and total clash would bring them face to face with their enemy. The luxury of battle belonged to smaller, lighter companies. Darius and the rest of the heavier forces were relegated to marching, digging and then, halfway to finishing whatever it was they were ordered to do beforehand, told to get up and move on.

There were other things too, other more maddening things than digging trenches only to fill them minutes later every couple of miles. There were camp followers as well- men, women and children who tailed the main body of the Noxian army as it did its slow crawl through Valoran. These people were not entirely useless- many of them were leatherworkers and armorers who kept the soldiers' equipment in working order- but some of them  _were_.

Darius had already lost count the number of times an officer's wife would 'accidentally' walk into the officer's tent, the number of times unruly children would throw tantrums and cause an endless amount of chaos until their parents or guardians came to collect them. He had absolutely no idea why the higher ranks allowed this sort of behavior and why High Command even allowed these people to tail the army. When he asked, all he was told was to not question it at all.

When he approached Strongbow about the illogical arrangement of having the rough equivalent of a village tailing them, the man had taken one look at him and laughed.

"Welcome to the  _army_ ," The archer had told him in between chuckles. "This is why I love teaching at Boram's Point, you see?"

"The followers do not annoy me as much as the children do," Darius had said to him angrily. "The children do more harm than good- why not leave them behind in Noxus, in crèches where they belong?"

"Those children," Strongbow had replied mirthfully. "are the children of prostitutes, and it costs more to keep them in crèches than it does to simply follow the army about, begging for scraps and favors from men who are weak."

Darius had stared at him blankly.

"You are not the sort to partake, as I understand it-" His former instructor had went on. "But some of these men  _are_ , and where there is a demand for such a thing, there are those who supply it- you understand that much, yes?"

It was all very disgusting and unprofessional for Darius- he was a  _lieutenant_ , not a child sitter or an errand boy. He had been trained for  _war_ , not to spend days on end digging and filling in trenches. This was a  _battlefield_ , not a settlement.

In between such domestic annoyances, all of them were kept in a maddening and heightened state of awareness thanks to their constant movements and scuffles with their Demacian foes. Darius himself at times felt quite like a tightly wound spring, ready to launch at something unknown but always being held back, always being pushed down for some purpose unknown.

There was no doubt in his mind at all that his fellow soldiers felt the same way- brawls over nothing were not at all surprising and as lieutenant he had a front row seat to each and every squabble. The men were on the edge like maltreated mongrels relentlessly being prodded with sticks- frothing and snarling at everything and everyone until those in higher ranks decided it was time to release them in the general direction of the enemy.

It was all very degrading and not at all efficient, but he was only a lieutenant,  _and_  he was hated by a very prominent House. He had absolutely no choice and no way to complain, and after upstaging de Roquefort in Zara the man had him in his sights as someone that needed to be put down and fast.

When Strongbow had told him to do what was expected of him in Zara, Darius had gone straight to General de Montolieu, passing over de Roquefort and earning the man's eternal ill-will. He had advised de Montolieu, not as a lieutenant but as a Baton of Boram's Point, to reconsider his strategy given their positioning and the men's ill-will towards each other. He was not quite certain if de Montolieu had listened to him at all, but the artillery had been moved at another place where the ground was much more solid, and scouts had been sent out to goad the Demacians into fighting them on unsteady ground.

Darius and the rest of the Black Watch had done very well for themselves despite some losses then, and his frustration and discontent had vanished the moment his axe had made contact with a man's middle, rending through the leather armor and letting loose a spray of red. He had felt alive on the field, had felt glad for all the training and hardship he had endured thus far. The clash had been short by army standards, lasting only two hours and ending with a Demacian retreat, but for Darius it might as well have lasted a whole day.

Going over de Roquefort's head did not bother him back then- after all the threat of de Croix's anger was more poignant than de Roquefort's could ever be- but now he both regretted and was proud of his decision to do so. Now his captain did all he could to make him wretched, and there were a multitude of ways to go about  _that_ \- especially in such a toxic and cutthroat environment like the Noxian military.

Being abused was something he could bear, and unlike before when he and his brother were left without any sort of stable income to their name, this time Darius could find comfort in the notion that de Roquefort could not touch his capital at all. Most of his assets were in the Funds, and it was a good thing that he had been told about it early enough. Otherwise, by some ploy of his captain or de Croix or even  _both_  at the same time, he would have found himself destitute and without any means to keep his growing wealth managed properly- being on the move and digging pointless trenches as he was.

"You are an officer now," Strongbow had said to him as they were falling in line for their wages. Both of them being lieutenants, they received the same pay: a total of two hundred gold pieces a month, given in middling increments and often so as to stop them from complaining. "You were treated very well in Boram's Point, but there are some things that we do not teach you at all."

Darius had stared at him in curiosity. There was more to learn about this life?

"What have you been doing with your notes?" Strongbow had broached. "The promissory notes you've been receiving from the War Office- your wages?"

"I keep them in a safe place, sir." Darius had replied slowly. "Should I keep them somewhere else?"

"You have no idea about the Funds, don't you?" Strongbow had asked. When the young man had shrugged his shoulders helplessly, the archer had given a chuckle.

"What do they do with our money?" Darius had felt inclined to ask.

In response, Strongbow reached out and rapped his knuckles on one of Darius' metal pauldrons. The archer knew that the Wolfman's son was very proud of the set- once the man had gained enough capital he had the set made.

The entire ensemble was black and angular, trimmed with blood red. The cape on his shoulders was a faded dark red, frayed and discolored about the end. The armor plates were layered on top of each other so as to provide more protection, and the entire thing was kept on with leather straps and buckles that went over Darius' clothes. It was dented and scratched in several places and not at all handsome given that Darius was practically no one in the army, but at  _least_  he had a full set.

Other men were not as wealthy or even attentive to their own survival. Up until the creation of the League, every single Noxian soldier was responsible for their own equipment as Boram Darkwill did nothing to provide any sort of stipend for soldiers to buy materiel. Every soldier approached the matter differently. Some people saw very little point in purchasing armor. Some people saw very little point in purchasing ammunition. This lack of financial support guaranteed varying quality in Noxian soldiers and it was something that the Demacians counted on.

" _I_  paid for this." Darius had replied, somewhat offended at the implication that High Command had somehow helped him pay for his own gear- now  _that_  was a blatant lie.

"Who do you think funds the business that made your little set?" Strongbow had retorted with a wry grin. "High Command provides financial incentive for those who supply materiel or create innovations for the War Office. Much of  _that_  money comes from people like you and me- people who have very little time or reason to manage properties or businesses, people who prefer to be afield or to dedicate themselves to greater pursuits."

If crèches existed for children whose deployed parents were unable to properly care for them, then the Funds existed for men and women who were far too involved in other matters to manage their capital. Simply put, if one purchased bonds from the Treasury Office, they received annual revenue of five percent of what they had invested.

Because these bonds had no maturity date, the income from these bonds was constant and unchanging. What they gave back was not much at all if one considered the amount by itself: supposing one invested seventy five thousand gold pieces into the Funds, yearly one would only obtain three thousand seven hundred fifty gold pieces in return.

Considering the Noxian market, however, with the price of everything from food to luxuries fluctuating from every little hiccup between Houses- an investment in the Funds was a little island of reliability that continually provided income to their creditors, however small it was.

If there was one thing in Noxus that one could place some modicum of trust in, it was the fact that the Treasury Office treated investments into the Funds very seriously- soldiers like Darius who could not manage their capital formed a very influential portion of their patronage, with investments ultimately going towards the war effort. For the Funds to be unreliable and untrustworthy was to practically cripple the Noxian war engine, and that was the last thing that anyone in High Command wished to do.

Thusly by unspoken agreement, no one but the Grand General dared to touch the Funds or to interfere with it at all, and those who managed bonds in the Treasury Office were oft said to be the most trustworthy in Noxus- at least, compared to the rest of the population. Of course, a Demacian might think otherwise.

Darius' money was untouchable, but everything else about him was fair game. As with everything in Noxus, however, there were ways to go about tormenting one's subordinates and  _none_  of them involved expressing an open threat. To do so would have given Darius reason to request a Tribunal and if he was proven to be right, he could have de Roquefort penalized, stripped of his rank or even executed.

The system was different in Boram's Point: in the Academy, the highest authority had been the Commander, and an officer-candidate could request a Tribunal from him directly. In the army, however, the highest ranking officer Darius could request a Tribunal from was General de Montolieu-  _but_  if the man found the issue to not be worth his time, de Montolieu could refer it all the way down the chain of command to Captain de Roquefort himself and there was absolutely no way that the captain would set himself up for career suicide.

The favorite tactic in officer's circles therefore was to give the subordinates they hated the dregs of humanity to command and to watch the subordinate either murder himself or his men. There had been no words between him and de Roquefort to suggest such, but in Darius' most succinct opinion, to be given yet another influx of sorry misfits to command for the third time running was  _not_  coincidence any longer and this time he had a  _child_  in the roster too.

He had been absolutely aghast when he had seen the boy. The child stood no taller than his shoulder. He had a blank face, still-healing bruises, dark circles underneath his dull eyes, unkempt hair, and telltale stinking sharp stench of one of the great unwashed. He had found himself reaching out to grip the boy's jaw like a buyer would inspect a horse's teeth at an auction.

"How old are you?" Darius had asked him as he angled the boy's face upward.

"Dunno." The boy had answered in a voice that cracked rather badly. He hadn't been able to meet his stare, which had only made the lieutenant tighten his grip on his already abused jaw.

"… You don't know." Darius had repeated as he had tried to keep his disappointment well in hand.

"Dunno." The boy had repeated.

_The boy barely looks a day out of the crèche._ Darius had thought to himself in disgust as he had flicked his wrist and let go.  _Who in their right mind…_

"Why were you sent here?" The lieutenant had broached.

The boy had shrugged- shrugged his shoulders, at him, his direct  _superior._ "Was sleepin'."

"Where?"

"In th' gutter." The boy had supplied. "… Not allowed."

And he would be going to war with this child. He didn't even have a  _word_  for the severity of  _this_  mockery.

His first posting as lieutenant and his first batch had been very pitiful to look at despite the relatively professional reputation of the Black Watch. Fifty-five men all in all, and none of them had seemed healthy or even remotely interested in fighting Demacians. Some of them had bent backs and greying hair while others were hale and short- too old and too young. Most of them had died in Jacob's Ford and at Belvoir Castle. Since then he had been given more run-down men, but those had been adults who  _knew_  how old they were and  _why_  they were there.

Now, to be given a child to send into war was a message in itself.  _Someone_ , de Roquefort, de Croix or  _whoever_ \- wanted him to suffer this indignity.

"Which camp were you from?" Darius had inquired through teeth he hadn't known he was grinding in frustration and helplessness.

"K'somethin'." The boy had responded. "K'vino."

What a  _waste_.

"Do you have a name?" He had tried.

The boy had seemed to think on it for a moment and Darius had been mildly worried that he would not even have a name at all when the child had brightened up and nodded at him. "Scraps."

_It can't be helped,_  He had found himself mentally noting over and over. _It can't be helped. Not everyone had parents like yours. Parents who cared, parents you squan-_

He had forced himself to stop thinking then. It had been a bad train of thought. He still had to inspect the rest of the new blood and he couldn't afford to dawdle over  _one_  child who no doubt would  _die_  on the morrow… unless he  _personally_  saw to it that the boy had a fighting chance at  _least_ \- but what  _could_  Scraps do instead of serving in the front and dying like a fly?

"Well then," He had said at length. "You shall be my runner. I suppose you could do that better than fight, hm?"

"Hurts t'fight." The boy had given him a lopsided smile, seemingly understanding that Darius had just saved him from a miserable death. "But runnin' is okay."

"But you will not run all the way to Noxus." He had corrected quickly, feeling foolish for giving the child such treatment. If he had given the child a better place, was he really going to interview every single one of these men to find out where he could best put them?

If he  _did_ , he would have an extremely horrible headache but at least knowing what these men did best would allow him to better place people where they could actually do some measure of  _good_  instead of serving as human-sized crow bait.

"Food here, so." The boy had shrugged again. "An' money. Is alright t'stay an' run yore stuff."

He had no right to blame the child for being so simple. He had been that way, once.

"You  _are_  aware of how orders work?" He had said at length.

"Do stuff an' get fed or die." The boy had affirmed with some measure of hope.

"… That is putting it rather lightly." Darius had commented. "But it shall do in the interim. Follow me, Scraps."

He had gone through the rest of the men with as much attention, and by the end of the day he had managed to get some measure of discipline in his little troop and felt a bit better about taking time to know the strengths and weaknesses of his latest acquisitions.

Scraps proved to be very useful as a runner. Being an urchin made him practically invisible in the eyes of the nobility and he was only one of many that trailed the army. Aside from running his correspondences, Darius had him probing about for Draven's whereabouts.

Soon enough, word reached him that his brother was in Korovino Redoubt for his conscription. Even though Darius still held some measure of ill-will for his brother given their bitter parting, he could not help but feel responsible and concerned for the younger man.

After all, he had promised his parents that he would take care of Draven. It was quite a miracle that word reached him at all about where his brother was- even if he  _was_  Baton for his class, he was not exactly in a respectable position given Maynard's grudge  _and_  de Roquefort's spite.

There was one name from all the training camps in Noxus that never failed to instill some sort of emotion in those that heard of it. Lower conscripted men, depending on which camp they were trained in, would either wince or laugh. In the ears of officers, it always elicited a collective groan as sympathetic stares and pats on the back ensued- but these sorts of men always made certain that Sion or Urgot were not within the vicinity when they did so.

Sion, Urgot and, by extension, Hystaspes were considered as exceptional products of Korovino Redoubt, a camp utterly consumed by the cause and production of  _numbers_.

To wit, in the old days before Jericho Swain's Noxus, the conscription and training of soldiers only went about in two ways- one could either obtain an education through a sponsorship and one's own means, or one could metaphorically canter about like a horse in an auction, showing one's paces and hoping that those already in the advantage felt the horse as an asset worth investing in.

Darius had been fortunate enough to have been conscripted in the former manner: he had been seen by those in authority as a diamond in the rough and with their monetary blessing, he had obtained his education in the most prestigious and grueling school in the entire nation, graduating as his batch's best. With a word and a bit of influence, he had secured for himself a respectable position as lieutenant within a relatively decorous company. His introduction into the military, quite frankly, was the best that  _anyone_  could ever ask for.

In contrast, Draven had not the  _opportunity_ \- he had been conscripted in the normal way and was largely left to the  _mercy_  of the system. The system revolved around the concept of numbers, advantage and  _quota_ , and none symbolized that more than Korovino Redoubt.

If  _that_  assignment was not de Roquefort's doing, he had the sneaking feeling that it was de Croix's, and Darius had not forgotten the grudge even after all this time. It was but a fleeting fancy to imagine that Maynard, member of the most  _vengeful_  House of Croix, had forgotten also. Darius knew full well that he had merely postponed it by going into Boram's Point and with the death of Alexander de Croix, there was no doubt in his mind that Maynard's so-called 'justice' would be all the more lasting.

He supposed if he had been of a more paranoid and skittish nature, he probably would have worried himself sick in the inevitable wait leading up to Maynard's guillotine. Perhaps he might even have considered paying off a provost marshal to ensure that his younger brother was always within his sight- after all, there was no better way to get back at him except to go  _through_  Draven.

He was not wealthy enough to have his brother watched over by a provost marshal, however, so Darius was very glad to be here now at the gates of Korovino Redoubt. His brother was here, and he was anxious to see how Draven was.

"Lo the cradle of depravity," Strongbow told him as the sharpened log walls had come into view. The fact that the archer was here next to him was not at all lost on Darius- he had the sneaking feeling that his former instructor had pulled some strings to be rotated out of the front lines with him. Strongbow seemed to be the type for that sort of sentiment. "I'm glad we're only staying here for a brief time."

The Noxian war machine was relentless, but even Boram Darkwill knew the value of rotating his forces, of exchanging spent men for fresher ones. Companies were constantly being pulled on and off the battlefield and while the Black Watch and a few other companies were at Korovino for 'liberty', their places with the main army had been quickly filled by others.

Their column- a humble five companies' worth of men- halted in the middle of the redoubt's expansive parade grounds. Darius took the time to look about, as not every camp was constructed the same way. Beyond the log walls, the barracks and longhouses were made of the same material and covered in green moss here and there. There were hundreds of them, all bunched up in neat lines. He could only imagine what sort of interior that was. If the outside was any indication; unpaved dirt floors, rickety wooden frames and canvas sheets for cots.

If he was more in tune with emotions perhaps he could've felt the raw misery emanating from such a place.

"Ya th' ones rotatin' in fer some liberty? Gather 'round," A grizzled man said to them all. From the improvised armor plating on his shoulder, Darius could see that the man had painted on his rank- one oak leaf meant captain. Obviously given his sorry state, he was not a very wealthy one. "We gots rules 'ere in Korovino. Ya need t'learn 'em all."

"Rules?" Darius murmured- making sure to keep his voice low and discreet. "… Why the need for rules?"

"Olrug," Strongbow's tone followed his. "is not the welcoming sort."

"That's putting it mildly." Darius replied.

"Firs' off-" The captain growled out. "Ya don't talk t'th' recruits."

**_Fuck_**.

"Olrug likes t'keep 'em on th' program, so no talkin'. If ya talk t' 'em ya disqualify 'em." The captain held up a finger. "So no talkin'-tha' be rule number one fer ya."

"This complicates matters for you, I'm sure." Strongbow said to him unhelpfully.

"When was my life ever easy?" Darius retorted under his breath.

"Rule number two- ya can bet on 'em when th' fights start. Olrug 'as 'em on a schedule. Ya can see it on th' training board behind me." The captain gestured to a large wooden board behind him. "'Course we take a small cut if ya win. Profits go t'th' maintenance o' the camp and fer th' glory o'our Lord Darkwill o'course."

" _Of course_." Strongbow added dryly in  _sotto voce_. "We wouldn't want to disappoint the Eternal General."

"We're a  _professional_  army." Darius muttered bitterly.

"Rule number three-" The captain raised four fingers. Darius could only sigh. "Ya don' fuck with Olrug's women. Ya can fuck with th' ones in th' village o'er down th' road. Tha' all."

"A Demacian king in his little castle." Darius remarked softly.

"He is allowed to run the camp as he wishes- it is his right as training master, and while he enjoys Darkwill's favor, there is nothing to be done about it." Strongbow replied as the companies began to disperse.

Some people were stumbling towards the fighting pit. Others went their way to the barracks. A fair few were making a longer walk to the nearby village- no doubt to seek some sort of companionship in a bottle or in someone's arms.

"How does he even obtain it?" Darius gestured around them in askance. Somewhere off to his right, a man stepped in horse excrement that had been left on the parade grounds. The person in question didn't seem to mind it at all.  _He_  could not get any dirtier- caked as he was in clay and gods above knew what else.

"The  _quota_ ," Strongbow replied swiftly and lowly. "That is all. There are  _other_  camps- cleaner ones with  _better_  training masters and more  _intelligent_  training staff, but in ten days, they do not give as many recruits as Korovino does, and so they lose favor."

Darius suppressed the urge to grimace. The quota was a damnable concept, but there was no denying that it was an effective way to create soldiers for the Noxian war effort- even if these soldiers were not very good at all.

There were a number of conscripts that all the Lord Wardens had to fulfill with every request made by the Grand General, a number of soldiers that all the camps had to somehow deliver to the fields of battle. The quota was absolute as Boram Darkwill did not expect any less, punishing those who failed to fulfill it with liberal use of the guillotine.

There was a number to make, and all had to achieve it. Inevitably, this approach led to a lack of quality in the men. Within the parameters and goals that Darkwill set, there was no time to  _fully_  ascertain the value of the men, and so non-commissioned conscripts like Draven were funneled into camps much like a herd of cows into a slaughterhouse.

And it was quite like a  _slaughterhouse_ \- conscripts were given very little by way of training. They were merely told  _who_  to obey and  _how_  to obey their orders, given some measure of weapons training by fighting each other for hours on end and kept on perhaps three hours of sleep and two meals every day. It was a source of great amusement  _and_  income for officers and interested parties to watch the conscripts fight each other- the sheer amount of money that changed hands in every batch of conscripts  _almost_  rivaled the Fleshing as those in advantage gambled on the survival and the abilities of those underneath them like one would do to dogs in an animal fighting ring.

At the end of ten days, the lucky ones who caught the eyes of potential sponsors and commanders alike were set aside for more training while the rest were shuffled along the line to be fought over by recruitment officers like lions over a corpse. Within the next six months, depending on how promising these supposedly 'better' conscripts were, they would be drilled on basic formation and maneuvers. At the end of it, these cows would emerge with a higher rank than the rest of the herd, but they were all treated the same way when it came to troop assignments.

Troop assignments for non-commissioned conscripts were handled much like a man would carve up a single piece of meat for a starving family of twenty.

Provost Marshals of the Corps would secure the number of bodies that they would need to maintain optimal troop strength within their respective corps, and it was not unheard of at all for someone in the lower ranks to bribe a provost marshal into making sure that a certain name or two would be part of the roster.

Given the number of bodies that their provost marshal had managed to secure, the officers within those corps would bicker and manipulate each other for the choice of men they wished to induct into their commands.

In this manner, the conscripts were shuffled along the chain of command like show horses in a fair as officers more or less fought and snapped at each other for the soldiers they wanted to have. Lieutenants like Darius had absolutely no say in the men they were given, as the lowest rung of the ladder were the captains and the quality of the men were extremely dependent on how good  _their_  superiors had been in the game that was troop assignments. In the end, lieutenants either had the dregs or the foam at the top of the tankard.

And Darius had the taste of these bitter dregs in his mouth for a while now. He could only hope that whoever wished him miserable would have kept his brother alive.

"My brother is here." Darius said at length. He tried not to let his worry show. "You have sharper eyes, I think. Do you see him on the board?"

Strongbow stared at the board filled with names for a moment, and then nodded his head when he saw what he was looking for.

"I've been told that Olrug  _likes_  him." Darius added.

Perhaps not wanting to be caught in the middle of the camp talking about the training master, Strongbow nudged him with his elbow and Darius followed him to a longhouse- it looked to be the officer's mess, or what passed for one. The ground under their feet was interspersed with sunken, half-rotted planks of wood- a pathetic attempt at flooring, in Darius' opinion.

The place was lit by three gas lanterns suspended from the ceiling. There were a smattering of tables and chairs and the sad equivalent of a commissary at the end of the open hall. It was not empty at all. In fact, there was a fair bunch of people who made an awful lot of noise and so when the two of them took a seat somewhere relatively discreet, their voices were barely audible amidst the rabble.

"He is up for fighting tomorrow." Strongbow began.

"If his name is on the board, he is alive- certainly?" Darius tried.

"We do not know that yet, even if his name is on the board. Your brother will be left to his own devices when he is not in training, and here the staff do not make it a habit to intervene unless the training master allows them to do so." Strongbow said very quickly, squashing his former student's meager hope. His voice was filled with barely withheld distaste and Darius felt strange at seeing the usually affable archer be so venomous about  _something_ \- it felt quite like watching the Chief laugh. "These men do not care if the recruits kill each other  _outside_  of the pit, so the only way to be sure is if you see him yourself."

The last missive Scraps had brought him from his contact in the village close by had been very vague, mentioning only that Draven had the training master's attention.

Darius chewed at his lip in thought. If his brother was on the board, he was alive when they had posted his name. He tried to take comfort in that while Strongbow looked to be suppressing himself from doing something- perhaps he was deciding between laughing bitterly and crying.

There was plenty of reason to cry, and Darius probably would have if he was the crying sort.

"What is it?" Darius finally queried with a sigh.

"All that you see here, this is part of a greater,  _grander_  game." Strongbow said as he drummed on the surface of the wooden table. "Not for us, of course, but for  _them_."

He had not been in the military long, and he was  _not_  the smartest person when it came to political intricacies, but Darius certainly knew what the archer meant when he had said 'them'- the higher echelons of Noxian society, the  _upper class_.

Merit was considered as being greater than that of birth or circumstance in Noxus, so compared to Demacia, there were no barriers at all to societal advancement save for the limits of one's ability and strength. At the same time however, what construed as 'ability' and 'strength' was largely left to interpretation and in the days of the Eternal General, it had been the concept of  _advantage_  rather than martial prowess, though the latter was still relevant given how Darkwill wished his army to be- largely made of dumb muscle and yes men who were too busy bickering amongst themselves to challenge his immortal rule. Of course, all that would change with the ascension of Swain to Grand General, but that would not be for a long time yet.

The concept of advantage, simply put, was that 'money is power'. Throughout Noxian society in Boram's time,  _gold_  was seen as the height of power and respectability- with enough gold, one could secure a future for oneself, and the only  _sure_  way to obtain gold was to serve as a soldier. Skill on the fields was recognized with prize money, pivotal victories saw a rain of gold onto the shoulders of those responsible, with the highest reward possible the endowment of a House name and the chance to be remembered in Noxus' glorious military history.

"He's not dead, I think." Strongbow tried helpfully as the grim knowledge reminded Darius of how stupid and how utterly unfair everything was. "Not  _yet_ , anyway."

"… Good to know." Darius responded candidly.

"Do you plan to find and talk to him? Tonight?" Strongbow gave him a sideways glance. "You know the rules."

"I  _have_  to." Darius said. Rules be damned.

Strongbow hesitated for a moment. He looked to be searching for something to say.

"What is it?"

"They do not make soldiers here." Strongbow said after a minute of silence- his eyes no longer gleaming with the hidden humor that was familiar to Darius as the back of his hand was. "Whatever your brother will have become when you see him,  _if_  you see him at all- that is Olrug's work."

Darius opened his mouth to reply but Strongbow raised his hand to stop him.

"Your father was at this camp and he survived with his mind relatively intact, I think- but we cannot say the same for Sion and Urgot." Strongbow told him slowly. "You do not fully understand what Korovino  _does_  to you, what training masters like  _Olrug_  do to fulfill the quota."

"He has them fighting each other like dogs, or so the word is." Darius replied with reluctance. "But surely that is no different from what you made us do in Boram's Point?"

"He  _treats_  them worse." Strongbow answered with uncharacteristic seriousness. "And I will tell you, compared to what  _he_  does here;  _we_  were very kind to you and your fellow candidates."

Darius could do nothing but stare, the realization closing in on him slowly and painfully. Of course- why should he have thought any different? After all, for desperate, poor and starving men, the army or the navy was the only way to earn a living. To these people, these individuals picked up off the streets to die in a war they never asked for, service in the military was not about being nationalistic and of wanting to prove one's worth in the eyes of society- it was about the  _money_ , and the  _advantage_  that it would bring to them. Serving  _Noxus_  never would once cross their mind, though all were fed such propaganda.

"You know more than I do," Darius probed tentatively.

"I know only what other training masters have told us, when they visited Boram's Point." Strongbow chewed on the corner of his lip. "We cannot interfere with each other, of course, but we could talk of training methods and programs. Right now, the Commander of the Academy creates the curriculum, and a basic outline is given to all the training masters every year. They are only guidelines of course, as every camp's needs are different, so how they go about it-"

"Is up to them." Darius finished for him grimly.

"…  _Implementation_  differs, yes." Strongbow nodded his head. "And certain camps have certain…  _cultures_  about them given that training masters select their successors from their respective training staff."

"And Korovino's culture?" Darius felt he had to know.

"I would say…  _especially_  unscrupulous, but the quota is in the training master's favor." Strongbow said after some time- he clearly was trying to find a way to word his sentences properly. "Korovino drives more than its fair share of men mad or into the grave- one way or the other."

Darius found himself gritting his teeth as he pushed himself out of his chair. He had to find his brother, and quickly.

"You know the rules." Strongbow reminded him as he reached out and clapped him on his armored shoulder.

"I'm going to the  _village_ ," Darius pointed out, and he was quite certain that Strongbow understood what he ultimately meant:  _if I should happen to find my brother along the way, then that hardly would be my fault_. "What will  _you_  do? Are you going to drown your sorrows while you're on liberty?"

Strongbow gave him a glance-  _if you get caught, that hardly would be my fault also._

"I'll let you know if the liquor here is made of piss," came the archer's wry reply. "After all, I think you'll be the one to do  _that_  before this night is done."

Now when Darius had first entered Boram's Point, he had been given a speech by Commander de Montfort on what Noxus was. Later on, Chief Instructor di Castellamonte had given him a rousing, if but vindictive speech on how everyone was worthless until they proved otherwise and basically informed them all that she was going to systematically murder those she found as weak or disrespectful. Those that survived the regimen, she would destroy and rebuild, all to make the ideal Noxian officer.

Olrug was not as eloquent, nor was he very inspiring. When Draven had seen him he had suppressed the urge to laugh as the man cut a very short figure, barely reaching Draven's elbow. Every inch of him was covered in scars however, and his eyes glinted in the way that a starving creature's would when it was being given food that it especially liked.

"I only have one rule, shitbirds: If you haven't killed someone during your ten days,  **I will shit in your face**." Olrug had said to them all on that first day- and it was a wonder that his voice reached Draven where he was as there were over two thousand of them and they practically were bumping elbows with each other. "This is Korovino- fuck everything you know and throw that useless shit out the window unless it helps you fight- the better you fight, the better treatment you'll have!"

"Day one, motherfuckers!" Olrug sneered at them all. "Whoever doesn't have a bed in the longhouse is fucking  **guaranteed**  to die."

Draven had not hesitated at all. He knew the man's tone. He understood. He was one of a few hundred to make the first mad dash towards a longhouse. He was almost at the door when he heard the telltale  _whumf_  of cannons firing. After that came the screams.

Olrug, it seems, already had cannons ready and pointed at them all. Now, if the projectiles actually hit anyone, Draven didn't stop to figure out. He had made a mad scramble for a bed, a word too generous for what it actually was: a wooden frame and a canvas spread over it.

Draven spent the rest of the day kicking desperate people away from his cot and flaying people when they got too close. When night fell, the longhouse suddenly was filled with dogs and the creatures mauled and dragged away the unlucky ones who weren't on a cot themselves.

"You bitches are the lucky ones today." The instructor said to them all when all was said and done. Draven could hardly hear him- his heart was beating loudly in his ears. "Goodnight, shitbirds."

After that horrifying first day, everything operated according to schedule: breakfast was some sort of thin gruel that barely filled their stomachs at all, and after a halfhearted attempt by instructors at teaching them about discipline, they were turned out into the pit to fight each other until the sun set. Dinner was some sort of grey meat that never sat well, and then at night the dogs were let loose on the grounds to feast on the foolish.

But for all his cruelty, Olrug was true to his word. The first time someone from Draven's longhouse killed a man, that person was given a blanket and dinner that actually  _looked_  like something edible. Given proof that a reward would be given if they killed someone, the entire longhouse soon dissolved into barely withheld anarchy. Groups were formed very quickly, and given his previous experience in a gang, all this was hardly new to Draven. He rose to the peak of his longhouse's hierarchy very quickly.

For the first three days he managed well enough, garnering himself at least one kill a day- enough to keep himself alive and warm until the morrow- but soon he was not satisfied with just having  _edible_ - _looking_  food, with just having  _one_  blanket.

He wanted  _more_. He  _killed_  more, and Olrug gave him  _more_ -an actual bed with soft pillows, expensive sweets, nice and filling food… even an evening with a whore from the village. With every pat on the head, Draven grew to  _like_  killing. He grew to  _like_  snuffing out other people's lives, to  _torturing_  them before they died. It was either him or them and the flashier and more drawn out the death was, the better he was treated.

At the start of the eighth day that was when  _they_  found him- the men and women who knew of him in the Fleshing Arena, who had seen him perform before. They caught him alone one moment, and without hesitation he flayed them alive and killed all but  _one_.

Draven had intended for the man to be an example.

The moment he had caught wind of what Draven had done, Olrug had him pulled from the ranks that same day while the person Draven had left alive was carried off, babbling about his mother and sobbing pitifully.

Needless to say, Draven was then promptly beaten to the point that he thought he would die- but Olrug knew his work and had left him conscious, albeit in agonizing pain.

"If you're fucking going to kill someone," Olrug had hissed at him as he had kicked at Draven's ribs with his steel-toed boot. "You get the fucking job done, do you understand?"

"I fucking left him alive," Draven had spat back as he curled about his middle, what remained of his lunchtime reward threatening to spill out of his mouth. "What the  **fuck**  is your problem?"

"That's exactly the  **fucking problem** , you piece of defective shit." Olrug had given him a savage kick again as the abuse made it harder to breathe. "You  **kill**  him, you don't leave him alive! If people piss you off, you  **murder**  them! You should be fucking  **thankful**  you killed the rest of that group- if you didn't, you'd be  **fucking**   **dead**!"

Draven had performed in the Fleshing Arena during intermissions, had seen shows there that turned blood into ice or twisted weak stomachs. He had never enjoyed killing, and had never found joy in torturing others until he came here.

By the end of the ninth day he was one of the best and cruelest and out of two thousand men and women, the number had whittled down to two hundred.

Olrug had allowed him solitary quarters at long last, and he lay in his bed staring at the ceiling and smiling. Tomorrow was the tenth day, and the end of his 'training period'. Tomorrow would see him in his last fight at Korovino's pit, and Draven was already imagining how it would be like to be an officer in the Noxian military. Surely the marshals would see that he had great potential, and when they made him into an officer, everyone would know that he was better than  _Darius_.

Maybe then his brother would accept him.

His musings were interrupted when he heard one of the dogs outside growling. Assuming it was a fool out to kill himself on the night before the final day, Draven had ignored it- until he heard a sharp crack and a low whine that soon dropped into nothing.

Draven pushed himself off the bed and stared through his window- a luxury given how the longhouses were built. He could see it- the mutt was dead, its skull split in half, pink brains and bright red blood dribbling down its shattered face.

He didn't know why the sight didn't disturb him. He pulled one of his blades close anyway- it wouldn't do to be killed before he was to fight on the morrow.

He heard footsteps next- very soft ones, the sort one would make if one was barefoot- and when he looked out his window again, he saw a boy staring at him. He threw the knife and hit the kid right in the middle of his skull, and considered it a job well done when the child didn't rise up from the ground where he was lying next to the dog.

Draven slept very well that night.

As he had said, Darius had gone to the village. He had spent the night there conversing with a man who had agreed to talk to him and listening to the instructors in the pub as they drunkenly recounted the ten days of their latest batch of morons. Whenever they mentioned his brother and the number of bodies the younger man had managed to make in just two weeks, Darius found himself becoming increasingly perturbed.

Strongbow had said that Korovino changed people, and if Draven had changed into such a blatant and unapologetic murderer there was very little he could do to correct that behavior now. He took comfort in the fact that his brother was alive.

He had paid for a room and had gone to his borrowed bed trying to ignore an ill-feeling in his gut all night, and when he returned to Korovino Redoubt in the morning, he saw that Scraps was dead.

The boy's body had been thrown out of the camp, knife buried up to the hilt in his little skull, body half-eaten by animals and giving off the beginnings of an ugly stench. There was a dog next to him in the same pitiful condition, its skull shattered and empty.

When he had come across him on the way to the village yesterday, Darius had asked Scraps to prowl about Korovino and find Draven. Having spared the child from a needless death on the battlefield, the older brother felt rather guilty when he saw the boy's gnawed corpse. What could he have done? He could have not asked the boy to find Draven at all, but it was too late now. The boy was useful while he lasted and he fixated on that idea with resentment that he didn't know he was capable of having.

Today was the tenth day, and he had to make his way to the fighting pit to see what his brother had become.

Strongbow was there already, and the archer offered him a seat next to him as the camp went about its business. The pit was not at all different from the one at Boram's Point- the sand was nigh black with old blood and the seats surrounding it were made of ancient dried wood. People were slowly filing in, holding stubs or some sort of refreshment as if they were simply going to watch a play.

"Beer?" The archer said in a damnably cheerful voice as he offered a foaming tankard.

"It's nine in the morning." Darius replied as he took the seat next to the man.

"We're on  _liberty_." Strongbow said with a nasal whine that was highly unlike him. Perhaps that was his third or fourth. "We're allowed to drink and fuck around. You're being yourself again, that's not fun at all."

"You,  _sir_ ," Darius said simply. "are drunk."

"On piss." Strongbow said with a half-burp. "I'll have you know I have ten gold riding on your brother's victory."

"He's quite the murderer." Darius said simply.

"So I've heard." Strongbow replied gamely. "What do you make of it?"

"Korovino changes people." He could not say anything more.

"That it does." The archer affirmed. "… Soooo, do you wish to bet on  _or_  against your brother?"

"… Why," Darius turned and looked at him as he said very patiently. "would I bet at all?"

"Don't you believe in your own brother?" The archer raised an eyebrow at him, a dazed smile playing in his eyes.

"I believe in his skill," Darius retorted. "Not in his mind. Who is he against?"

"Some bloke named Yardley." Strongbow informed him. "Strong contender who uses a chain mace and is not at all inclined for mercy either. They'd make a good pair."

"Yardley will play him, and you will lose your money." Darius said at once, if only to keep the conversation going. The men and women of Korovino were being marched out of their longhouses now, and Darius saw Draven at once.

His brother looked very raw, unpolished. There were the beginnings of some facial hair on his face but it seemed as if his brother hadn't decided yet on what style he should keep his whiskers in. It was unkempt and raggedy, not at all different from the scruff his father had before. Other than that, the younger man seemed to have fared better than everyone else- no doubt because of the better treatment he got as a reward. The moment Draven saw  _him_ , his little brother waved his hand, puffed his chest and offered him a smug look.

Darius took it to be his brother's usual posturing-  _watch me, I'm going to be better than you._

He didn't see any point in it.

"You guys  _seriously_  have problems." Strongbow piped up when he noted the way the two siblings stared at each other.

"With all due respect,  _sir_ , shut up and drink your piss."

" _You_  can bet on Yardley," Strongbow chuckled, oblivious to Darius' retort.

"Gambling," Darius shot back as Olrug spoke about his bloodthirsty recruits. Darius filtered out the expletive-filled babble as he observed the rest of the people who were with them in the stands. He spotted the provost marshals well enough- they were carrying notebooks and pens. "Is hardly a fitting avenue to utilize my wage. I'd much rather put it in the Funds."

"I  _think_ ," Strongbow said around his beer mug as he blinked at the fighting pit. "I think I shall keep my money on your brother."

"You'll lose it- and more." Darius grumbled darkly. "What are his odds against Yardley?"

"Fifteen to one but that hardly matters- I  _think_  he could do with a little bit of faith from you." Strongbow commented sagely. "I have a brother. I  _know_."

"I might take you up on that drink." Darius snapped to change the topic before his former instructor decided to lecture him on how to treat Draven.

"Knew you'd come 'round." Strongbow clapped him on the shoulder merrily as he shoved his half-empty tankard in his former student's face.

"You're drinking from that one." Darius said without preamble.

"Oh dear," The archer mumbled. "Afraid of spit?"

"I'm not throttling you out of respect-  _sir_."

"Wow, you got a pole in your ass." Strongbow remarked loudly. Those within earshot stared at the two of them in amusement- some drunker than others.

Darius decided there and then that he hated liberty as the archer changed hands and passed him a full tankard, albeit awkwardly.

The fights passed in a blur for Darius- he did not care for any of it at all and half-heartedly sipped at his tankard only to be polite, grimacing at the taste of the beer and wondering why he was sitting here and waiting for his brother to play a crowd to the tune of murder. On the other hand, Strongbow seemed to genuinely enjoy himself, shouting and stamping his feet every time something happened down in the pit.

When it was finally Draven's turn, Darius leaned forward and nudged Strongbow to do the same.

"There's Yardley." Strongbow burbled with a wiggling index finger as a large and imposing man walked into the blood-soaked sands of the pit. He was better armored than Draven, who was practically naked from the waist up, and carried a frightening looking chain mace laden with spikes in one massive hand.

"Fight, you worms!" Olrug shouted to start the match, and Darius saw Draven strike a pose. The crowd held their collective breath.

"You fucking idiot." Darius growled at once as Yardley capitalized on his brother's hubris, whipping the deadly flail at him. Draven rolled out of the way- if anything, being half naked allowed him to move faster than the man across him- and posed again.

"Come on!" Draven said with a merry howl as he pulled his blades from his back- the things were still the same ones Darius had seen all those months ago when his brother had done nothing with them but juggle. "You gotta work harder than that to hit the magnificent Draaaaaaaaaaaaven!"

Darius suppressed the urge to hold his head in his hands.

"You talk a lot." Yardley retorted as he advanced, whirling the flail in his hands into a deadly circular storm. The longer he spun it on the chain, the harder it became to see the actual spiked end.

"You're a fucking moron." Darius muttered under his breath as Draven replied to Yardley's insult with the same sentence.

"You two are so  _adorable_." Strongbow piped in unhelpfully. Darius shoved the man's tankard into his face and the archer made an annoyed yelp- his lips bruised on the rim.

" _Rude_." The archer grumbled.

"Shut up." Darius hissed around the side of his mouth as Draven began to juggle his blades. If all Yardley had to do was spin his flail, his brother had the more complicated task of keeping two blades in the air. Draven began to throw his blades at Yardley, but the man deflected the thrown weapons each and every time. For his part, Draven made it a game to catch the deflected blades by their hilts, and soon the fight looked more like a circus act rather than a duel of life and death as Draven juggled and cajoled the crowd into a frenzy with each successful catch, their voices rising and falling with every arc the blades flew.

"Let's make it three!" Draven hollered gamely as he threw an extra blade into his act, throwing and watching Yardley deflect it back at him. "Three's a charm!"

Not for the first time in his life, Darius found himself despairing at the fact his brother was such a showman. This display was entertaining everyone but _him_ \- if he had been the one in the pit, Yardley would have been dead within the first ten seconds, but his brother was making this a game, prolonging the fight and playing with everything and everyone. Certainly, his roots as a performer were showing and he was making a good impression of himself as someone who made a spectacle of death, as someone who made this sort of thing worth watching- but was he officer material?

Darius glanced at the nearest provost marshal, noted the way the man did not seem impressed. He scanned the crowd for more marshals, and saw that most of them were shaking their heads and murmuring among themselves- Draven was doing too much and taking too long, and the marshals were keen to move on.

For all the disapproval he was building with those in authority, Draven had the crowd on his side and he knew it- practically laughing and dancing on his feet, feeding off the reactions of the assembled men and women who chose this day to watch Korovino's pit fights. He treated Yardley like a complacent assistant, but the man knew what he was doing. It didn't take long for Darius to notice it- with each throw and catch his brother was doing, Yardley would move forward a little bit, and he would swipe at his brother. Draven dodged the tries easily by rolling to the side, but ultimately, he did not move  _away_  from Yardley and he was backing himself into a corner he probably did not notice. Soon Yardley would be in range to pummel Draven to the ground, and his brother would not expect  _that_  at all, given how drunk he was with the crowd's excitement and his own amusement.

Darius could watch his sibling die, or he could tell the idiot that he was making a mistake.

He could hardly bear the thought of failing his parents again.

" **Draven you fucking moron!** " The man who would become the Hand of Noxus stood up and shouted at his brother, his voice carrying farther than he thought it would as cold panic took him and overwhelmed him. " **He's going to fucking kill you!**   **LOOK HOW FUCKING CLOSE HE IS!** "

Draven halted, distracted as he stared at his brother in askance. Yardley saw that was his chance and swung his arm-

Suddenly, Strongbow reached over and pulled him down savagely. His ass hit the chair hard enough to clip his tailbone. As Darius stiffened up in involuntary pain, Draven leapt out of the way of Yardley's swipe, throwing all three blades at him.

"Fucking gods, rule number  _one_!" Strongbow rambled as he took Darius by the collar and shook him, tankard of beer forgotten in his panic. " **RULE NUMBER ONE!** "

"Get off me!" Darius hissed as he pushed back at the archer as the rest of the crowd collapsed into shocked silence. "What about Draven, huh?"

"You don't fucking understand-" Strongbow wailed in his face. "You broke rule number one! He's going to be  _disqualified_ , you imbecile!"

**Shit**.

" **What!?** " Darius howled back as the sound of a body falling onto the sands filled the air. He craned his head over to look and found Draven standing over Yardley's corpse.

His brother had  _won_ , but-

"He was doing really well and you went and  _ruined_  it!" Strongbow babbled hysterically at him.

"If you  **weren't**  piss drunk,  _maybe_  you could've told me that  _earlier_ , huh?" Darius snarled back as he shoved Strongbow away from him.

"I thought you  **fucking**   **knew**  it already!" The archer lamented as he stared at him in unrestrained anguish. "Rule number one- don't talk to the recruits! how  **dense**  do you have to fucking be!? I'm not going to be around to  _explain_  shit to you  **forever**!"

"Shut up!" Darius snapped irritably, his anger hiding a panic he hadn't felt in months. "Did he win or not?"

"Of course he didn't win, you dumb  _shit_ \- he's disqualified and  _you_  disqualified him!" The archer wailed again. "He'd be lucky if Olrug lets a marshal pick him now- **you dense motherfucker! Look!** " Strongbow took his face in one quaking hand and jerked it towards Olrug's direction- the training master's mouth was in a thin line, his disapproval palpable across the distance.

Draven was staring at Olrug too, and his smile was rapidly fading from his face.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**  hi i'm still alive.

Nothing much to say here other than the fact it escalated very quickly. Might go back to this when I revise to correct the flow.

Anyway, other than that, a lot of stuff happened in the interim between updates but yeah! Still working on this, doing the thing, crying a lot ahahhuhu.

Anyway, don't be afraid to throw questions or ask for clarifications ooooor to tell me how much of a horrible person I am to leave you at a cliffhanger.

Also Shadow is officially one year old- joy of joys.


	20. Fugazi

_Dark clouds are smouldering into red_

_While down the craters morning burns._

_The dying soldier shifts his head_

_To watch the glory that returns;_

_He lifts his fingers toward the skies_

_Where holy brightness breaks in flame;_

_Radiance reflected in his eyes,_

_And on his lips a whispered name._

**How To Die (Siegfried Sassoon)**

* * *

**TWENTY-EIGHT DAYS LATER…**

The Howling Marsh was once called Jacob's Ford, but a poorly-directed spell had accidentally raised the dead who had fallen in the field. The ravenous things had consumed a good number of the 1st Noxian Legion, the so-called 'Glorious First'. No one knew if the mage who had cast it was a Noxian or a Demacian, but once the Glorious First had been ravaged, both Demacian and Noxian armies had made a hasty retreat. No one knew why the undead never went past the borders of the swamp, but the creatures stayed where they had been raised.

Despite the presence of mindless shambling corpses that sought human flesh, the perilous Howling Marsh was still considered as part of the Noxian front line, and High Command had made an effort to shore up their position there. According to the aristocratic officers who often named the camps, the humble collection of tents and firepits close to the Howling Marsh was named Camp Endurance.

The edges of the Howling Marsh were mostly made of rolling hills- a side effect of tectonic magic somewhere to the north- and Camp Endurance was positioned on the highest one so as to give a good view of the surrounding area. The ground underneath it was fairly firm. Around it, the Noxians had pushed the soil to make low earthen walls. It wouldn't do much against artillery but it would give infantry and cavalry some measure of pause.

Due east some ten miles away was Outpost Greywolf, and the smaller and relatively undefended posting was the only way for those at Endurance to know if the Demacians were approaching from that direction. Thanks to the distance between the two camps and the overcast conditions, signal lanterns and runners were the only way to pass the word between the two. It was not that important enough, and its commander not at all trustworthy, to merit a communication shard.

For the men who actually  _were_  posted there, they took to calling it Camp Creepy, because of the undead that roamed in the swamp and the heavy smell of death that hung over the entire place. Given the surrounding area, the camp was not precisely high on the list of priorities that High Command had and was poorly manned compared to other camps.

The Noxian chain of command normally held a Major responsible for the daily operation of a camp, but as Camp Creepy was not exactly a luxury posting, many aristocrats paid more to avoid being assigned to it. For those who hated someone down the chain, it was an easy matter to pay a Provost Marshal of the Corps in order to send someone down into the armpit of hell. Of course, that person would also most likely pay to avoid such a fate, and then the entire process would repeat until the Provost Marshals of the Corps found someone who had very little means to avoid Camp Creepy.

Sion, the renowned axe warrior, was not one of those men who avoided assignments they did not like, but neither was he someone who could not afford paying his way to avoid such inconveniences. He had very little wants in life other than the satisfaction of cleaving someone in half with his Chopper, and most of his pay went into the Funds like most career soldiers during his time. To ensure that he saw action as often as he could and that he had some measure of personal freedom, Sion had stopped buying promotions the moment he had reached the rank of captain.

As most of the officers in Boram Darkwill's military knew each other to some extent, those from on high did not want to grant Sion a higher rank as they saw him as nothing but an uncivilized brute. In the end, Sion's captaincy and willingness to remain where he belonged- crawling in the mud with the rest of the men in both the negative and positive connotations- was not objected to at all.

The Camp Commander of Camp Creepy, therefore, was only a Captain who held a captain's pay, but Sion held a Major's authority due to having been given a brevet, and so on paper Camp Endurance was no different from the rest. Given the toxicity of the Noxian chain of command, brevets were more or less the equivalent of sticking plasters. To be granted a brevet was to be given a temporary promotion- in essence, one possessed the authority and the responsibility behind the rank, but one was not given the same amount of pay or even precedence.

As most sane people wished to avoid a miserable deployment close to a haunted, stinking swamp, not everyone actually was at the rank they were supposed to be on paper. Thusly, Sion had only been given the brevet of a Major because he was literally the highest ranking man in Camp Creepy.

In a place such as Camp Creepy, the only concern for the officers was to see to the welfare of the men. All other concerns- the heady death-smell, the vaguely human shapes shambling in the distant fog, the threat of Demacians braving the marsh and approaching from the east- were insignificant. So there was  _some_  semblance of routine in Camp Creepy, and Sion had grown tired of it after the first week. He was not the sort to complain about being posted somewhere unpleasant, but he  _was_  the sort to complain about a lack of action. He had the 51st Battalion's Sergeant Major, who in reality was only a master sergeant, write all of his grievance letters for him as he could hardly do it himself, let alone read. Still, messages were lost all the time when their runners were not prudent with their duties… or were paid to accidentally lose missives.

If he had a choice, he would have abandoned Camp Creepy for a few weeks in order to make his point to the higher ups clear with Chopper, but he was not the sort to dismiss orders as mere guidelines either. If anything, Sion relished being at the front- and this posting was the farthest one from the rather fluid Noxian backline.

It was a familiar scene that balmy morning; Sion was standing by Sergeant Major Corriel and the two of them were in the sparsely furnished command tent hunched over a beaten old desk, the former looking impatient and the latter's brow furrowed as his hand curled about a bent quill, writing shaky and smudged letters onto the parchment.

Corriel was a somewhat educated man; his father was an officer in the Treasury Office, though the man had disowned him when his offspring had gotten too deep in his pockets and in cups. So here he was now, in Camp Creepy, writing missives for an officer who didn't know how to read or write.

"-And then tell them I fucking want to be moved up," Sion grumbled as he tapped his thick fingers on the rotten wood of the table. "Maybe to Adder, or even Headhunter. This place is shit."

"This place  _is_  shit." Corriel agreed with a miserable nod of his head as he wrote as much onto the paper- complete with curse words.

Where other commanders would've admonished the Sergeant Major for his remark, Sion gave him a rough pat on the head- like a man would do to a puppy.

"Maybe High Command'll actually reply this time." Sion said.

At Corriel's look, the Major added. "I've got nothing else to say."

Duly finished with the chore of writing his commander's letter for him, Corriel made an unhappy noise in his throat. He signed the letter- using Sion's name because Sion's writing was illegible on his best try- and then folded it up and sealed it with black wax.

"How are the boys?" Sion probed as Corriel put the sealed letter inside an oilskin envelope; a luxury given Camp Creepy's low supply priority. It would be given to the next messenger who decided to grace the camp with their presence. Corriel didn't want to send anyone out for fear of having the assigned runner desert.

With the morale in Camp Creepy, the Sergeant Major couldn't trust anyone to come back.

"Bored out of their fucking minds." Corriel replied without preamble and with all due frankness. "Greywolf signaled early this morning, so the next check-in would be around lunch hour."

Sion stared at the entrance of the tent. He did not have the best eyesight now that he was pushing sixty, but he could still see over the short dirt walls they had erected about the camp. The earthy, somewhat rotten smell of the air was rather pronounced today. The skies above were the usual dull grey, what light and warmth the sun could shed down on them was filtered heavily by dense clouds. The fog hung low and thick in the marsh. Outside their simple dirt walls, nothing stirred- not even the insects.

 _Another boring day,_  Sion thought to himself.  _Another fucked up, boring day._

"We're gonna get our fair share of action one of these days." He murmured to himself as he stroked Chopper's haft.

Corriel sighed, and Sion looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Was his Sergeant Major a coward? Did he not  _want_  to fight?

"Are you afraid of the enemy, Corriel?" Sion asked him in a deliberate, sharp tone. Other people thought him stupid, which was all well and good. It made their expressions of shock when Sion beat their faces in for their nonsense all the more amusing.

"No sir." Came the soldier's glum reply, though he could see the man had tensed somewhat at his commander's tone. "Just bored, sir."

"One day." Sion said vehemently. "One day, we'll get some  _action_. You'll see. And then it'll be  _fun_."

"… Sir." Corriel responded simply. "I'm going to go do the rounds, sir." Clearly, he didn't want to talk anymore.

Sion waved Chopper in his general direction, and Corriel exited the tent faster than he would have on a normal day. Sion made a disdainful grunt in his throat and exited the tent himself.

 _When is the enemy going to come?_  He thought as his fingers tightened about Chopper's haft, his wrinkled knuckles white with impatience.  _When?_

Little did they know, the Demacians  _were_  on their way, and they were closer than most people in High Command had thought.

Ten miles away, at Outpost Greywolf, two men were watching the goings-on at Camp Creepy: one was sitting atop a plain brown horse, the other was settled on a splendidly-bred grey charger.

With short auburn hair not yet streaked with white, grey eyes that keenly gleamed with intellect and a sinewy frame, Lord Maximilian Spiritmight was fairly young for a Marshal at thirty-seven. As the King's brother-in-law, however, he had been given the promotion as part of his sister Catherine's bridewealth.

The young man by his side was Garen Crownguard. In the distant future he would become the Might of Demacia, and would replace his father as commander of the Dauntless Vanguard when time came. At the moment, he was unusually tall and robust for his age of thirteen; his head had been shaved to leave a strip of short brown hair at the center, giving him a rather severe look that was only accentuated by his blue eyes.

In adherence to Demacian custom, nobles in high positions mentored officers of lesser blood or lower-ranked aristocrats so as to continue their education beyond that which they already were given by the city-state, in the process molding them into ideal Demacian officers and commanders.

As a Marshal with command over three regiments, then, Lord Spiritmight was considered as one of the best options for young men who wished to advance in Demacian society, and his former mentees were other men of great repute and high honor.

When Marcus Crownguard had privately shared to King Jarvan the Third the desire for Garen to succeed him as commander of the Dauntless Vanguard some three years ago, the King had given his approval.

With nothing but the word of his father and some measure of talking between the King and his brother-in-law, Garen had been placed under Lord Spiritmight's command as his latest mentee. Now they were observing the Noxian camp in the distance, three bodies littering the ground near their horses' hooves while the bulk of the division remained at the reverse slope where the bigger Noxian camp would not immediately see them.

Lord Spiritmight had sent a messenger to the Noxians who had manned this post earlier, asking for their explicit surrender. Most had fled when they saw the ten thousand men in the distance, but there had been three people who had stayed behind. These men were now gathering flies and watering the earth with their blood.

Garen hadn't seen the wisdom of sending a messenger asking for surrender, but at the same time he hadn't wanted to question Lord Spiritmight. Still, the desire to ask 'why' was much like an annoying itch on the curve of his ear. He told himself to keep his mouth shut as Lord Spiritmight watched the Noxian camp with his extendable spyglass.

The ideal Demacian officer did not speak unless spoken to, that was one of the first rules Lord Spiritmight had told him. He would be obedient. He would be the  _best_.

After some time, Lord Spiritmight lowered the spyglass and twisted his lip.

"This poor light is making the view rather difficult; you've sharper eyes than I do, lad. What do you see there?" Lord Spiritmight passed the copper and gold inlaid spyglass to the young man next to him. The brown-haired youth took it with all due seriousness and raised it to his eye.

Garen didn't know what he was  _supposed_  to see. He had been told by Lord Spiritmight that they would be assaulting a camp, but that sorry place with squat dirt walls and patched-up tents looked nothing at all like the walled forts he was used to seeing in Demacian territory.

"Low dirt walls and a few tents, Your Lordship." Garen replied slowly- he thought it was best to be frank. He squinted through the spyglass, counted the bobbing heads and then added. "Maybe… a few hundred men."

"A paltry number, not one that we expected to see." Lord Spiritmight repeated with a dry note at the end of his voice. "Well. A camp is a camp and a fox is a fox, despite it not being a very  _good_  fox."

Garen wondered what he meant and tried not to scratch the itch. No, a good Demacian officer does not question his superior. He didn't want to be bad.

"We must open the ball very soon. We are on an inflexible schedule after all," Lord Spiritmight's smile was rather wooden. "Tell me, lad, what time is it?"

"A little after six, Your Lordship." Garen supplied obediently as soon as he had figured out the time from the watch he wore at his belt. He wasn't wearing heavy armor, as speed had been of the essence when they had departed from Fort Justice a day earlier, taking one cavalry regiment and two regiments of foot with them.

"We shall open the ball…" Lord Spiritmight was musing out loud as he tapped his gloved fingers on his saddle's decorated pommel. The King's brother-in-law looked deep in thought, as if he was considering the strategies needed to take the camp.

Garen didn't see how it was going to be difficult- they had three regiments, which was more or less ten thousand men, to the Noxian's three hundred or so. It wouldn't be very  _hard_.

"No better time to learn than today," Lord Spiritmight said with a lazy relish. "Tell me, lad, what do you think is a good time for us to begin our assault?"

Garen thought of it. He felt that they had to strike  _now_ , while the Noxians did not know that their outpost had been taken.

" _Now_ , Your Lordship?" Garen replied hopefully.

"T'would do to remember the Measured Tread, lad." Lord Spiritmight reminded him with a note of disappointment in his voice.

Of course, the Measured Tread- the ideal Demacian was just and fair, even to his enemies. Immediately, Garen wished he had never said such, though the itch flared up- demanding the reasoning behind the man's words.

No, he couldn't question him. He simply couldn't. It wouldn't do.

"Look through the glass again," The King's brother-in-law offered kindly. "What are they doing?"

Garen did so. The sight that greeted him was strangely domestic. He had been told that Noxians were nothing but ravenous, bloodthirsty beasts, but these people looked like  _men_.

"… Shaving and dressing up, Your Lordship," Garen responded after a while- again he decided that frankness was his best option. "… And eating."

"Would  _you_  wish to be interrupted whilst doing  _your_  morning rituals, lad?"

"… No, Your Lordship." Garen replied at once with all the naivety of youth. It seemed like the right answer.

"Precisely," Lord Spiritmight said with a little glint in his eye. Garen took it to be his approval, and felt better about his previous mistake.

"We must always be fair, even to those who oppose us." The King's brother-in-law went on. "'Tis in the Measured Tread, and we must always obey the Measured Tread, no?"

Lord Spiritmight glanced at him again, and those grey eyes of his seemed to be searching for something.

Garen didn't want to disappoint him.

"Yes, Your Lordship." Garen dipped his head, and this seemed to satisfy the Marshal.

"So, to our order of battle this morn. We shall move closer to this camp, but we must keep to the reverse slopes to hide our numbers," Lord Spiritmight held out a gloved hand, and Garen passed him the spyglass. "Five miles closer, I think- t'would allow us some time. At ten o'clock we shall send a messenger to that camp to ask for their immediate surrender. T'would only be fair to give them some measure of dignity and leave to retreat. If they decide to stand and fight, then we shall give them a good licking."

But three  _regiments_ , against what looked to be three hundred at the  _most_? Where was the fairness in that? Garen chewed at his lip, and the Marshal glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

"You are allowed to ask, lad." Lord Spiritmight offered. "'Tis the reason why you were placed under my wing- to learn."

Garen thought of it. How could he say his question?

"I… I do not think it  _fair_ ," He said very slowly, his voice cracking about the edges. "To bring ten thousand men against what looks to be, at most, three hundred men, si- Your Lordship."

Lord Spiritmight smiled again. It wasn't wooden or practiced like before, but it didn't feel very welcoming, either. Garen didn't know if he had just stepped over the line or if his query was welcome.

" _That_ ," Lord Spiritmight said with a strange tone in his voice as he dug in his heels and urged his horse into a walk. "Is why we are offering them the choice of sparing their lives with a surrender, lad. We all have a choice, and we must always offer the enemy the option to save  _their_  lives. Else we are nothing but the lowest of the low- like those Noxians, hm?"

 _Of course,_  Garen thought at once as he followed the Marshal's example,  _that made sense._

"'Tis six o'clock, by your reckoning," Lord Spiritmight said casually. "Our move shan't be 'til ten. We've plenty of time to catch up on your reading while the army moves along the reverse slopes; always remember, lad, an impending assault is no excuse to avoid the written word. Once we've finished Durand's treatise on inanimate constructs, we shall move on to other subjects. What do you propose to study later this evening?"

"Perhaps Antoine's infantry stratagems, Your Lordship?" Garen offered eagerly- he had seen the book in the Marshal's list of reading materials, and he wanted nothing more than to learn more on how infantry should be used.

"Certainly."

As the Demacians crept along the cover of the slopes, the Noxian camp in question remained blissfully unaware of Outpost Greywolf's surrender. When the battered hourglass that hung outside the command tent signaled the tenth hour, a runner emerged from Outpost Greywolf, and the Noxians at Camp Creepy had initially thought the man was one of their own.

To their immense surprise, the rider atop the bay horse stopped short outside of the dirt walls, and it was only then that the sentries had noticed the man was wearing the uniform Demacian blue and yellow instead of the typical black and mottled brown commonly seen on poorer Noxian messengers who couldn't afford other colors.

After that, the sentries had scrambled madly down the slope of the dirt walls, making a mad dash for the command tent.

Sion had been sharpening Chopper on a grindstone when the first of many panicked men practically ran into his tent, and then the rest of them were soon piling on each other outside. The nominal Major had taken one look at the panicked man's face and had smiled.

"What is it?" The axe warrior asked.

The first man could hardly speak- his throat was not cooperating and he was shaking like a leaf in the gale, so the Major stared at the next man to come into the tent- Corriel, the Sergeant Major.

"Demacians," Corriel said grimly, and it was clear from his tone that he was very apprehensive. Perhaps he felt their prospects were not very good.

Sion smiled as he lifted Chopper from the grindstone. "How many?"

"One," Corriel supplied as he followed the Major outside. "Just a messenger; the Demacians always send one or two in first. I'd say the bulk of the army is likely going to be on us within the hour."

Sion's grip tightened about his axe, his smile widening enough to show his yellowed teeth.

 _Finally_.

The messenger was still there, and he sat straight in his saddle despite the number of nocked arrows pointed at him. He was young, lean and barely looked twenty.

"What message?" Sion demanded outright. The Demacian stared at him in marked surprise for a moment- perhaps he had expected someone else- before he cleared his throat and spoke.

"I carry the voice of His Lordship the Duke of Endurn, who invites you to save your lives." The messenger enunciated. "My terms are thus: leave now and we shall not harm you. Stand and fight, and we shall answer with the same."

Sion's grin widened into a death-rictus, and it was the last that the messenger saw before Chopper separated his head from his neck.

" **WHAT DID YOU DO!?** " Corriel shouted at him as the head fell. The Demacian's head streaked the horse's side with blood, and thusly startled, the animal gave a shrill shriek and turned, galloping towards Outpost Greywolf with the corpse still in the saddle.

"I gave them an  _answer_." Sion replied, his smile still on his face. "Finally; don't you see? This is  _it_. This is  _our_  time."

" **IF YOU HAD JUST SURRENDERED** -" Corriel began hysterically, but Sion cut him off. Literally.

The two halves that had once made a man fell to the ground, and Sion gave the rest of the camp a deathly serious stare, the light in his eyes fervent and disturbingly sharp.

"Anyone else?" The axe warrior sneered as the motley assembly of men quaked in their boots.

Despite their shaking frames, pale faces and stained trousers, no one answered him.

The horse returned an hour later, and it didn't take long for Garen to notice that the rider no longer had a head. He tried to ignore the chill in his gut.

"They killed Ferris," Garen croaked out with a throat that was suddenly dry as he passed the spyglass back.

"'Tis rather unfortunate that they wish to fight, but we shan't disappoint." Lord Spiritmight remarked with genuine disappointment. "… We do not need to stay by the reverse slopes- it does not look to have rained here and the lay of the land seems dry. If we are to commandeer that camp, we must move now. Please send word to Lords de Lioncourt and la Bédoyère to begin the march."

Normally, he would've moved to do the man's request, but Garen found that he could not. He felt glued to his horse and unable to move. He had known Ferris, and just an hour earlier, he had  _wanted_  to be the one to take the message to the Noxians.

If he had been the one to ride out, he would have  _died._

"... Unfortunate." Lord Spiritmight repeated with a fatherly pat on his shoulder. "They could simply have refused poor Ferris and sent him back to us, but these Noxians- as you can see- are violent creatures who would prefer to destroy the messenger. 'Tis not your fault, lad."

As an afterthought, the Marshal gave him a little nudge and added. "Please tell the musicians to do a marching song as well. We shall need to raise their spirits. Ferris was well-liked."

With only an hour left to live, the men posted at Camp Creepy were not very optimistic of their chances. Sion had asked the two hundred and thirty men to make their preparations as best as they could, and when ten had tried to run away, Chopper was quick to cut them down. There were only two hundred and twenty now, and all of them looked resigned and unhappy.

Sion was honestly disappointed, but then again- not everyone was a warrior. Not everyone enjoyed being on the field of battle. It would've been nice, to have someone who understood- like Hystaspes or Urgot- but the Wolfman had been executed years ago and the High Executioner was never at the front thanks to his disfigurement.

No one appreciated battle as much as the three of them had in those days, although… Sion briefly played with the thought of having Darius by his side.

He hadn't known the boy for very long, and his posting to Camp Creepy had made contact impossible, but Sion could still remember Hystaspes' proud and animated smile as he told his battle brothers about his firstborn: bloody and bloated from the birth, a minute hadn't even passed before the Wolfman's cub had punched the midwife in the eye.

The three of them all had high hopes for the Wolfman's firstborn then, and knowing that Darius was this year's Baton would have made Hystaspes very proud. Urgot and Sion were not precisely the sort to stay with a woman, and Hystaspes had been the only close friend who had managed to sire children.

If anything, he wished for the Wolfman's son to be here now, to see him end his life in glorious battle as his father would also have wanted, but such a thing was not to be.

When sentries on the wall sent word that they had seen the first Demacian regiment emerge from the low fog, Sion stood up from his seat and left the command tent with a smile. It was not the sadistic death-rictus that he had worn when he had killed Ferris, but it was a genuine smile that carried light into his eyes and in his step.

Even with his poor eyes, he could see the Demacians assembling outside the low walls. The commanders were all the way in the backline as expected- with the pompous-looking one in the middle the chief among them from the way the other three kept glancing at him. He could see them toasting with glasses of what looked to be wine, with a man nearby holding a silver tray.

Assholes.

The men under his command were all lined up, their weapons gleaming with polish or poison. Some looked as if they were ready to vomit, while others looked resigned to their fate. He took his place at the head of the wretched column as they marched out to meet the enemy, and thought of those who had gone before him into death.

"To today's fox, gentlemen." Lord Spiritmight said as he raised his glass.

Garen followed suit, though he didn't know why he had to. It seemed very disrespectful to the young man, to be toasting to other people's deaths but he kept his mouth shut and sipped politely at the red wine.

"The big one," Lord la Bédoyère said casually, as if he were picking out horses in a fair. "I think I've seen him before, Your Lordship."

"It is Sion." Lord de Lioncourt answered for him. "He was one of those reckless blighters at Mogron Pass years ago, along with the Wolfman."

"My father fought the Wolfman," Lord Spiritmight said, his tone strange and soft. Garen couldn't help but glance at him. The King's brother-in-law looked very somber as he continued with a slight croak. "… He lost."

There was a second's pause after that, all the cheer had seemingly vanished from the air, and no one seemed willing to interrupt the Duke of Endurn until he had pulled himself out of his thoughts.

"… I wonder where he is now." Lord Spiritmight said finally. "Do you think he's still with the army? The Wolfman?"

"Light rest your father's soul, Your Lordship." Lord de Lioncourt said sympathetically.

"I think it would please you to know that the Wolfman is dead, Your Lordship." la Bédoyère replied with a curl of his lip. "I heard he was eaten alive by wolves when he failed Darkwill's expectations."

Lord Spiritmight's laugh was not very long. It lasted only for maybe two or three seconds but it was full in voice and amusement. At once, the other two lords smiled, and Garen felt ashamed when he found that he could not muster the will to do so also.

"A fitting end, and not at all an unusual one, knowing Darkwill." Lord Spiritmight remarked with a smile as the assembled lords gave approving nods. "'Tis the fate of monsters; we should be glad that we are not such creatures."

"Hear, hear." They raised their glasses again and drank to the thought.

 _How are these people monsters?_ Garen couldn't help but think as he glanced at the Noxian soldiers.  _They look human to me._

"I have a query, Your Lordship. If I may?" la Bédoyère stared at the Marshal politely.

"You may," Lord Spiritmight replied primly.

"We are close to the Howling Marsh. These men may rise from the dead also, if we kill them here."

"My lords, the dead do not walk if they do not have heads." Lord Spiritmight replied confidently. "I fought the risen dead here, when this place was still Jacob's Ford. We shall kill them, and then we shall behead them all. This engagement should not trouble us more than an hour."

"If you do not mind, I shall take you up on that bet, Your Lordship." Lord de Lioncourt said with a cheeky grin.

"I haven't been wrong before, my lord de Lioncourt. Perhaps you shall have a lighter coin purse once this engagement is done." Lord Spiritmight rubbed his gloved hands together. "Shall we? Sion looks to be waiting for us to make the first move."

"That is how he fights; when he sees our men engaged, he will charge through the weakest lines and attempt to kill us. Perhaps we should remedy that. May I offer a suggestion, Your Lordship?" Lord de Lioncourt looked at Lord Spiritmight for permission, and then when it was granted with a nod, he continued. "Look at their faces; I do not think his men will follow him into battle."

"They look the sort to run." la Bédoyère commented. "Perhaps another attempt could be made, Your Lordship?"

"I'll take your naïve advice," Lord Spiritmight said with an amused glance at the younger lord. "We shall make the hare run,  _if_  he is willing to run. After all, we cannot fight those who do not wish to fight, t'would not be  _just_. Howard, my speaking trumpet, if you please."

The nearby steward, who was not on a horse at all, took his glass. After a few minutes of searching through a nearby trunk, he placed a gilded speaking trumpet in the Marshal's gloved hand.

"Ho there, Noxians!" Lord Spiritmight's voice carried clear and loud thanks to the enchanted trumpet. The Noxians opposite them looked up in surprise at being addressed. "I am Lord Maximilian Spiritmight, Commander of the 5th Division, and Duke of Endurn. Once more I invite you to save your lives; you have my word that we shan't kill those who do not wish to fight. Merely lay down your arms, and we shall grant your capitulation all due deference."

Garen could see their eyes, and he knew that the men across him were seriously considering the offer. All of them looked starved, afraid and in need of a good bath, and only the big scarred one seemed eager and remotely happy. He didn't know why the big one was happy; wouldn't a man be afraid of death when it was staring at him in the face?

 _Please accept._  Garen found himself thinking.  _I don't want to kill you. Not when you all look resigned. This isn't waging war._

The big one raised his thumb and drew it across his throat; a clear refusal. His men looked the exact opposite, however, and knowing their commander had his back turned they lowered their weapons very slowly, so as to not alert him to their actions.

But two hundred or so men lowering their weapons at the same time was bound to make some measure of noise, and eventually the big one turned to look at the soldiers under his command.

Garen found himself tightening his grip on his horse's reins.

"All of you?" Sion said simply, his Neanderthal brow furrowed and his already small eyes narrowed to slits. No one could meet his gaze. They were all shaking in their boots, and he could smell the scent of urine and feces in the air.

How pathetic.

To think that he had once been concerned for these men, that he had once tried to teach them of battle as it had been for him when he was still in his prime. These creatures were nothing but spineless wretches who knew nothing at all of battle, or of glory. They didn't wish for death in the field as they should have- no. They only wished to  _live_ , even if it was a pathetic existence lower than the slugs that crawled on the marshy ground.

" _I_  will fight." Sion said with a snarl as his rage brewed underneath his skin. The sorry display made him absolutely furious. When did it become wrong to enjoy a glorious death? When did battle become something that had to be avoided, instead of  _embraced_? What had happened for the next generation to disdain war, to see self-preservation as being better than obtaining a good death?

To be given this sort of response- where were the  _good_  men? The men who knew the value of a good death? Where were they all?

 _You would have been disappointed, Hystaspes. These children are not like us,_ he found himself thinking in his fury.  _I wonder, is your son the same sort?_

But… surely Darius understood? Darius, who had been raised by the Wolfman himself, knew what a  _good_  death was. Sion had been there when the Wolfman and his wife had died, and he had seen Darius' face and remembered that the boy had not faltered at all.

Darius would  _know_. Darius seemed to _understand_.

Sion shook his head in disappointment and turned his back on his men. He stared at the Demacians and gripped Chopper's haft tightly in his hands as the Noxian line behind him began to dissolve. One man against what seemed to be an endless number of foes. It was not the very best of odds, but it was, in every sense of the phrase, a  _good_  death.

He took comfort in that, and in the knowledge that even if his men had not the strength or the willingness to follow him into this battle, there were some in the world who still knew the value of a good death.

As the Noxians began to flee, leaving the big one alone outside the deserted camp, Lord Spiritmight smiled benevolently as he passed his speaking trumpet back to his steward. "Well, that was an excellent suggestion, la Bédoyère. I commend you for your thinking. We have obtained terms, gentlemen."

"T'was well done, Your Lordship," Lord de Lioncourt responded. "Very well done. The quicker Sion dies, the faster we can rendezvous with the rest of the army."

"Yes," Lord Spiritmight said. "And when this advance is over, we can all return to the comforts of civilization."

"Hear, hear." The two lords nodded.

Garen stared at Sion, who was baring his teeth and howling indecipherable curses at the Demacians, and then at Lord Spiritmight, who was staring at what he had in front of him as if he was merely playing chess.

All his life he had been told that Noxians were nothing but monsters. They looked frightening, certainly, and they were so different, but still- even a man who was going to die deserved better chances than  _this_.

"Your Lordship," Garen began hesitantly, and Lord Spiritmight looked up and tilted his head at him. "I… I would like to fight him. Alone."

"A puerile proposition, lad." Lord Spiritmight chuckled at him. "'Tis no fault of ours that his men chose to abandon him."

"But Your Lordship- one man against ten thousand?" Garen said at once, pity and kindness overwhelming his concern to remain an obedient Demacian. "It isn't fair!  _Please_ , Your Lordship, please! Let me fight him!"

"He chose this fate for himself, lad." Lord Spiritmight pointed out carefully. "He chose to keep his axe in his hand, he chose to stay even if he saw that his men had abandoned him to save themselves. 'Tis no fault of ours and we shall fight him according to terms."

Garen glanced at Sion again- saw that he was now beating at his chest with a fist and daring the Demacians to come to him. He could only mentally scream his frustration at the Noxian warrior.  _Why waste your life? What point is there in staying, when you knew you're going to die? What point is there in fighting, if it would be nothing but painful?_

"Your Lordship," Garen looked at the King's brother-in-law again, his tone pleading and cracking with his distress. " _Please_."

"I gave your father my word that I would keep you safe, lad." Lord Spiritmight admonished him sternly; his tone as cold as his eyes and backed with steel. "You wish to  _fight_  this thing, to throw away your  _future_  in order to grant this beast some semblance of  _decency_? I shan't risk your life in that manner! Now be  **quiet**."

Garen recoiled away from the older man as if he had just slapped him, and stared desperately at Sion as Lord Spiritmight spoke the words he would remember for the rest of his life.

"The Blues of Cresson will advance! Put him to the sword and take his head."

At the pompous-looking one's words, the infantry began to move towards him. Despite the frustration, the disappointment that had kept his rage boiling- this was  _it_. This was his glorious end.

He had lived a life filled with nothing but war and fighting, and he would meet his end in such a way that it was impossible for others to  _not_  remember him. Even if his men had abandoned him, even if no Noxian was left to see him meet his doom, these Demacians were, and these Demacians would remember him as that man who fought against ten thousand.

Though he knew he would die he could not help but smile.

This was a glorious death.

A  _good_  death.

"To death and to friends long gone; I'm going home." He said softly.

He charged and as he did, he thought of better days and of friends who had passed on ahead of him.

The entirety of the Demacian division collapsed about Sion like water engulfing a rock. As they hewed away at him, he never screamed in pain- he only laughed. He returned their blows with his great axe, but never seriously wounded anyone as the massive blade bounced off ready shields. No matter how big of a man he was, soon even his head fell underneath the mass of weapons and armor that had converged upon him.

"The hare has been caught." Lord Spiritmight said with a satisfied note in his voice. "I will expect a handsome sum from you, Lord de Lioncourt."

As the nobles bickered about him playfully, Garen felt sick.

He felt like crying, but then again- why should he cry for a Noxian who had fought despite depressing odds? Why should he weep for a man he barely knew?

He had never been outside of Demacia until now. He had never heard of what Sion had done. Perhaps Sion  _had_  deserved such a fate. Perhaps Sion  _had_  wished to die in that manner.

It was as Lord Spiritmight had said- he had chosen to keep his weapon, he had chosen to stand and fight. One man's folly was just that-  _his_.

"Justice has been done," Lord Spiritmight's voice pierced his thoughts as a great cheer went up; a man had put Sion's head on a spear, and the scarred face was twisted in a bared grin. "Ferris may rest in peace now."

"Yes, Your Lordship," Garen replied slowly as he composed himself.

He shouldn't feel sorry. It was Sion's choice.

"We are Demacians," Lord Spiritmight remarked as the bloody trophy was toted about. "And we are men of our word."

"Hear, hear," la Bédoyère said with a smile and a nod.

The musicians had started to play a joyful tune on their instruments, lending a cheery, festive air that contrasted with the sight of Sion's hewn, trodden on and mangled corpse as the rest of the division advanced.

The news of Sion's death would not reach High Command until two days after the grisly fact, when three deserters from Camp Creepy returned to the army. After hearing of the man's demise from their mouths, Boram Darkwill had ordered the deserters killed, and the man to see to it had been Urgot, the High Executioner himself.

Having returned to the front almost a month before Sion died at Camp Endurance, Darius had not been privy to the news, and as word of the loss would not do morale any good, most of the soldiers who served in the Noxian army remained in blissful ignorance of Camp Creepy's capitulation.

Camp Creepy was only one amongst many. All across the Noxian front, camps that had been undermanned and relatively weak were taken with surgical precision. Unsurprisingly, in units with extremely low morale or miserable circumstances, men were deserting in droves when they could. It soon became common practice between the officers to count the number of their men twice- once in the evening and again in the morning- and to consult unit ledgers for names.

As High Command descended into panicked arguing and bickering on the hows and whys, the men who were lower on the chain of command heard and experienced nothing but failure after failure as the Demacians began to dictate the pace of the war with lightning fast and disturbingly surgical assaults.

It would only get much worse.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**  I actually planned this to be a giant chapter, but then again I felt that people would become too confused. So I thought it was best to split it into two parts, and here is part one for your perusal. Long story short, as you already got the first half of a monster chapter, you get to have another update much faster.

As to the Demacians- my approach here was to emphasize the fact that the Demacians carried themselves according to the Measured Tread, and therefore they held themselves to certain rules when it came to war (such as offering the enemy the chance to surrender). Still, we see that even the Demacians aren't precisely angelic- they look down at the Noxians and consider them as nothing but beasts, and even though they claim to adhere to the concept of fairness and freedom of choice, it's hard to see one man fighting a divsion of soldiers as a fair fight.

We're introduced to Garen here, and by the timeline I'm going along he's only thirteen years old. There's still a lot of room for doubt, even if he had just graduated from the Royal Academy, and well- even the Might of Demacia was a kid.

To clarify: Fugazi means 'fucked up, got ambushed, zipped in (a body bag)'. It was also used during the Vietnam War to imply a situation that's broken and fucked up beyond repair.


	21. Hard Today, Impossible Tomorrow

_Favorite Teachers write poems about students!_

_Reading them is like listening to whores_

_talk about clients; however contemptuous they sound,_

_everybody knows who's selling, who's buying._

_I'd like to be able to like them. I sleep. Wake._

**Torment (Daisy Fried)**

* * *

**THREE DAYS LATER…**

Darius drifted up from blessed darkness when he heard a vague scuffling of boots off to his right. The young lieutenant resisted the urge to grunt as he prayed to whatever merciful god there was in the heavens for the owner of the intrusive boots to ignore him, even as little flecks of dirt and grass fell into his pit and peppered his front.

Someone reached out and shook his shoulder- Darius cracked open exhausted eyes and squinted up at his visitor; one Captain Gerard de Roquefort, a hale and pugnacious looking man who seemed to suck lemons on a daily basis.

Normally Darius would be the epitome of respect even if the man deserved very little of it, but seeing as it was the captain's fault that this was his third grave for the day, he was inclined to be difficult.

"…What?" He said snappishly, and captain de Roquefort made an amused noise in his throat.

"I expected more from the Baton," the captain said dryly, and the insinuation was not lost on Darius at all, even if he was very tired.

"What,  _sir_?" Darius said peevishly, even as he did not get up. Captain de Roquefort pursed his lip, stared about him and then looked down at him once more.

"General de Montolieu," Captain de Roquefort said softly, "is looking for you; I would not presume to keep him waiting."

"What for?" Darius couldn't help but ask. General de Montolieu had shown him nothing but polite curiosity when he had talked to him at Zara, and after that, the older man had not asked for him again. Why now, and why couldn't he wait until he had eaten at the very least?

There was a very long pause before de Roquefort pursed his lip and finally said. "War council."

War councils were simply that- meetings held by the higher ranking men and women of the Noxian army wherein they outlined the strategic plan to subordinates up to two ranks below them. A war council involving General de Montolieu meant that the commanding officers of the 2nd Legion would be receiving its operations order.

An operations order was a plan that directed a unit as to how to conduct a military operation. It would describe what situations a unit would face, and what activities needed to be done in order to fulfill the mission's goals. These orders were normally generated by the Generals themselves, and then passed down the ranks through the use of war councils for commanders and understand what the strategic plan was.

Once these men understood their orders, they would then make their own plan tailored to their unit's needs and capabilities, and then they would pass  _that_  down the chain of command. The notion was to maintain the commander's intent in mind, and to achieve that goal by any means necessary.

For example, if a General wished to take a Demacian fortification, he would create a plan to take it. This plan would be given to his subordinates, who in turn would add or remove details and whatever else they felt was needed in order to achieve the overall goal: capturing the Demacian fortification.

By the time that sort of thing reached lieutenants like Darius, of course, the grand strategic plan was more or less summarized to: 'Stand here and look threatening. Kill whatever tries to kill you, especially Demacians. Also the earth may swallow you whole'.

As far as Darius knew, receiving orders from on high and interpreting them for subordinates did not involve lieutenants like him: the captains were the end of the line for that. Why did de Montolieu want him?

Darius rubbed one dirty hand over a mucus-caked eye as he half-crawled, half-felt his way to the side of the pit. The phrase used in his manual at Boram's Point all those years ago to describe this sort of pit was 'fighting hole' and he had used that term also, but since he had heard the men call the shallow scrapings as 'graves', that macabre nickname had stuck.

These graves were only supposed to shelter a man from wayward projectiles as one rested and were never supposed to be too deep or too big. If it were, then it would be called a foxhole or an entrenchment, and if one was not careful, one could also be mistaken for a latrine.

Darius had never dug a grave for himself before; as a lieutenant, he had the luxury of a tent and a cot to sleep in. It wasn't until a few days ago when the Demacians attacked their lines that Darius lost his tent and cot during their fighting retreat.

After that the entire 5th Corps had moved so often that, when Darius had finished gouging out some semblance of drainage for the odd chance that the skies above saw fit to drown him as he slept, he had practically fallen into his grave still holding onto his trowel.

He pushed himself over the shallow wall not unlike a slug would, and with slow hands began to put on his armor as Captain de Roquefort watched him silently, hand over the cavalry saber at his hip. Unlike his bedraggled lieutenant, de Roquefort looked far more respectable; his medium armor polished and his boots shined. His black hair was slicked back with oil, which made it gleam in the firelight, and Darius entertained the thought of setting de Roquefort's head on fire sometime during this campaign; a literal hothead.

"Hurry," the captain said as he nudged at Darius with the edge of his knee. The lieutenant resisted the urge to shout at him as he finally buckled on the last of his equipment. His hands slipped on a buckle, and his finger complained of the ill treatment.

As the pain helped him along to some semblance of wakefulness, Darius became aware that there was a weight pounding incessantly at the back of his head, his stomach equally assailed by hunger pangs. When was the last time he had eaten? Too long ago, perhaps.

Above his head came the metrological equivalent of his dietary woes- a heavenly rumble that matched his stomach's complaints to a tee. The skies had been building up into a fearsome storm above their heads for the past three days, and even now an odd bolt of lightning would cross from cloud to cloud. There was very little light to go by, considering that it was currently the height of Noxian summer by Darius' reckoning, but the wind that came down from the north- from the Freljord- was very cold and pleasant, albeit dry.

His hand wavered over the haft of his axe from where he had put it against a scraggly and not very healthy tree. Did he need it?

"Where are we going?" Darius asked softly, even as he wiped at his eyes again. Neither of them could afford to speak very loudly; they were surrounded by other similar graves, and sleep was a sorely needed luxury these days.

"South and behind, to Camp Adder." came the captain's impatient response. "There would not be a lot of fighting, if that is what you are thinking."

If there was another fighting retreat, he'd be damned if he left his axe behind. It took him a minute to find his harness, and yet another to attach his weapon. All the while de Roquefort rolled his eyes but did not interrupt him.

The two of them quietly made their way out of the Black Watch's picket, and took care to avoid stepping into a grave as the ground was practically filled with them. The entire 5th Corps was on ten percent watch, which meant that most of the men could rest while one man from every company remained awake to watch over them.

Looking down at all the graves, staring at dirt-smudged faces like his own made Darius remember the past three days in better clarity. As a lieutenant he had very little say in his orders, and the call for retreat had come from on high. Even if he had no desire to retreat, Boram Darkwill had ordered the entire Noxian front line to step back some five miles, and there was very little Darius could do except grit his teeth and march.

To bloody the Demacians some, the 2nd and 5th Legions had willingly taken the brunt of the beating during yesterday's retreat. Serving as rearguard essentially meant holding one's ground for a minute, and then moving back ten paces; for heavy infantry like Darius, it was basically standing, beating off the Demacians with whatever they had on hand, and praying that their foes were stupid enough to miss their projectiles.

On that dreadful retreat, both Legions had served as rearguard for the entire Noxian army. Now that they all had time to lick their wounds and take stock of their situation, already word was spreading of the 2nd Legion's new nickname, The Bendovers, as the 5th was appallingly called the 'Dead Dogs'.

Darius had taken comfort in the thought that, compared to the Glorious First, who was now known as the First Suicide Legion from General Halifax's blunder at Jacob's Ford, the 2nd Legion's new name had stemmed from necessity and jealousy, not from foolishness and fear.

They walked for a while. Camp Adder was a good mile away behind the front, and they passed through the rest of the bivouacked Corps of the 2nd Legion as they went all the way to the rear. Some men were awake, polishing their swords or talking of home, but most were napping or trying to catch some rest.

Every now and then the pockmarked earth was punctuated by a tent, and the telltale smell of blood and medicine wafted out from those places. Very few men made their sleeping holes close to such things, and as they came closer to the back line they were joined by several other men.

There was no real regulation regarding rank insignia except for the fact that it had to be displayed somewhere on oneself that people could see all the time, so it took a bit of staring and craning of Darius' already stiff neck to realize that his fellows were commanders, some from the 2nd, others from the 5th Legion. There was a smattering of Lieutenant-Generals, Majors and Colonels, but the Captains outnumbered all of them. As far as Darius could see, no one here held the rank of lieutenant.

He felt much like a felon; that is, he was not precisely supposed to be here. No one else bore the same rank indicator as he did, and all of these people were echelons higher than he was in rank and in age.

To understand Darius' predicament, one must understand the structure of the Noxian military at the moment.

A Noxian Legion was made up of two to four Corps, and it served as the biggest military formation that could ever come under the command of one man. There were six Legions afield at the moment- these were led by the five Generals of the Joint Council and the Grand General himself.

A Corps was composed of two to four Standards, and within these Standards were the Brigades. A single Brigade more or less was made of two to four Battalions. Battalions were composed of Companies, and a single Company could have as many as six Platoons inside of it, or as little as two.

To wit, a Corps was usually led by a Lieutenant General, a Standard was led by a Major, a Brigade was led by a Colonel, a Battalion was led by a Lieutenant Colonel, and a Company was led by a Captain. The chain of command thusly began at the rank of General, and then ended at the rank of Second Lieutenant.

One was called a General Officer if one possessed a General's rank; that is to say, from Brigadier-General to General. These people were at the top of the rank structure, and were not often on the field. They were the tactical sort, the people who made the grand plan, who created the very first operation orders.

One was called a Field Officer when one possessed a rank ranging from Colonel to Major; these were men and women who were given the strategic plan and all the freedom with relation to its execution. Beneath them were the Company-Grade Officers, the regular men and women who were the rank of Captain and below, who were only given orders and were expected to do them to the letter.

To be surrounded by these men and women then, only drove the point home. What did de Montolieu want him for?

"You are Baton." de Roquefort said to his unspoken question. It was clear from his disdainful tone that he thought very little of such a decision.

 _What in the flying fuck does that have to do with anything?_  He thought. As bad as he felt, he had no desire to sound like a complainer, so he only responded to de Roquefort's words with a nod.

Camp Adder was very old and so by sheer virtue of withstanding the test of time was much stronger than the now defunct Camp Creepy; the walls were made of proper stone and brick, the top of its fortifications laden with sharpened iron shards. Darius could see arrow slits on the walls, and felt as if a hundred or so eyes were staring down at them all. At the base of the walls were dirt covered blankets, and when he stared at de Roquefort the man only responded with a single word: spikes.

Here then, was a place that the enemy could not simply walk into; Camp Adder was as treacherous as the snake was.

The parade grounds were neat, the dirt very closely packed from years of being stepped on by conscripts. The buildings behind the walls were equally stout and made of stone. Camp Adder served a multitude of purposes: in times of relative peace it was a training ground, and in times of war, it was a veritable fortress.

de Roquefort and the rest of the commanders seemed to know where to go, though Darius could hardly discern a difference from one building to the next. Every single thing here seemed to have been designed with monotony and similarity in mind, and perhaps that added to Adder's box of tricks. Even if the enemy were to breach the walls, their next destination was going to take them twice, even thrice the amount of time to find, let alone subdue.

They all filed into one building, which had a small sign next to the doorpost-  _command_ \- and then they were going down stairs that went on for twelve steps before it turned right, and went on again for twelve more before once again making a turn. They were going underground.

Darius counted five such turns before they all stopped and went down a branching tunnel.

It felt much like Boram's Point, to tell the truth; the ceiling sloped upward gently, the iron rafters supporting the weight of the world above arranged like bones of a rib cage. The walls were much smoother, the floor polished to a bright grey sheen. Green runic torches crackled merrily above their heads, casting a pale shade of emerald over them all. All the black iron doors were very thick and set into the wall, and when Darius stared at one for too long, de Roquefort pulled him and rolled his eyes.

"Why is it set in so much?" Darius could not help but ask.

"If Demacians use explosives, the blast would be taken by the wall as a whole, not just the door." de Roquefort muttered. "There is no soft point; those things are thicker than they look in places where one would normally perceive it to be thin. You are Baton; shouldn't you know this?"

The motley group filed into a chamber that could have held the entirety of the 9th Battalion with room to spare. Darius could see that it had been a reading room at some point before the bookshelves had been put aside to make room for a massive black table, its surface covered with a very large map.

For the first time after a very long period of being kept in the dark and told  _not_  to wonder, Darius saw the battlefield in its entirety. Thick black lines divided the battlefield into neat grid squares but unlike his little map back then, there were no pieces on the surface to indicate what unit stood where, which was very odd.

There were several people already in the room- Darius could see General de Montolieu across the massive table conversing with another man. When Darius put two and two together from his memories, he almost stopped and held up the rest of the commanders behind him in his shock.

Commander du Couteau, or rather,  _General_  du Couteau now. Time had been very kind to him, as far as things went. He was tall but not broad-shouldered, his build slighter than strapping. He was not elaborately attired like some of the other Generals; his blood red coat was older but taken care of very nicely, the silver General's skulls on his epaulettes slightly dented but polished all the same. At his hip was a finely made sword and long knife.

He carried himself with a sort of easy and confident grace most identified with predators, as if he knew so much more than the rest of the people in the room. His eyes were a startling aquamarine even in the dull green light of the torches above, and his hair red streaked with a few threads of silver.

He had a neatly trimmed and short goatee, his likeable face only marred by a single scar that crossed from the base of his jaw up to the inner tip of his eye much like Darius' own, and emanated a sort of fatherly energy with every gesture he made in conversation with General de Montolieu.

Darius scanned the crowd and saw a man standing very close to the table, looking down at the arrangement with a militant eye. He was tall, taller even than Darius who already was pushing past six feet and growing still. His hair was very short, cropped close to his skull, his face stark and without softness. His cheeks were very high, his eyes half-hooded and dark. He wore the garments of one of the Raedsel- or at least, something close to it.

Black plumed feathers peered out from the bronze and green canvas-covered pauldrons on his shoulders. His arms and hands were clad in gauntlets of rune-etched bronze. He cradled a plumed helmet in one hand, the face dark and without the Raedsel Guard's trademark blood-red eyes.

He did not wear a robe like the Raedsel did, but instead had a sort of coat with tails that flared out from behind him like wings. His legs were equally covered in armor, and the tips of his covered feet ended in sharp points.

 _What am I doing here,_  Darius found himself wondering yet again, and he stared at de Roquefort in askance before the man shrugged his shoulders and pushed him forward.

"General," de Roquefort said softly, and de Montolieu turned from his conversation with du Couteau to look. "The lieutenant, as you ordered, sir."

"Ah, Darius," de Montolieu took him on the shoulder. "Thank you, Gerard, you may go."

Sourly, de Roquefort saluted, turned and joined the rest of the commanders across the table. Darius became very aware that he was the only lieutenant on the other side... or rather, the only lieutenant in the whole room.

The general stared at Darius for a full minute before he continued on. "You look-"

"Shitfaced." Marcus du Couteau commented dryly.

"Sir," Darius said; he had no excuse to speak of. In this company, he could hardly say ' _What the hell did you expect? You interrupted my sleep like an asshole_ '.

General du Couteau's aquamarine eyes probed his own for a moment before the man said in a gentle tone. "You are Baton, so you hold the right to sit with us as we do this; the word was not  _properly_  passed to you, I think."

Darius could only stare at them blankly. It made some modicum of sense; to have the most promising and the very best student of Boram's Point sitting in such things, to learn from generals far more experienced.

He had been told many things when he had graduated as Baton, but to have the right to be in the same room with generals and gods above knew what else had  _never_  been said to him before.

Perhaps this was a tradition that only the aristocrats kept to themselves, and now that the Baton was a commoner, someone down the line had conveniently neglected to tell him.

"We all thought it strange," de Montolieu agreed lowly. "When you did not sit with us again, you see. Your advice at Zara was greatly appreciated."

"Before the retreat three days ago, we held council and asked after you also, but then we were  _told_  by your captain," Marcus said, and he put an unusual stress on the word 'told' and stared at the assemblage of commanders. "That you would not leave your men, so we could not call for you again until now."

 _Oh._  Darius thought, and then it took every ounce of his self-control not to punch de Roquefort and smash his scheming face onto the map table.

Withholding the General's summons? Now  _that_  was a first.

"… I am a mere lieutenant, sirs." Darius tried, and his words came out of his mouth about as slow and plodding as he felt; words were no province of his, and Strongbow was nowhere in sight to put more appropriate ones in his ear. "But I will tell you; if I knew that I was being called, I would have come immediately."

Marcus du Couteau's mouth could've been set in a smile or a frown; it was hard to tell with the light.

"Take care to remember," The man clad in armor akin to the Raedsel Guard's commented off to their side. His eyes never went away from the map table. "That the entire world does not revolve about the Baton of Boram's Point."

"I can scarcely imagine such a thing, sir." Darius replied, though he did not know who this man was.

The man lifted his eyes off the map table now, and stared at the Baton of Boram's Point with something akin to detached curiosity. After a while, he made a small snort, shook his head and said. "You are every inch the man Keiran said."

Keiran  _Darkwill_?

Which one of Boram's children was this one now?

"… Sir." Darius said, for lack of anything to say. "You have the advantage of me."

"Yes, of course. You are stupid, thick and not at all intelligent," The man clad in bronze armor went on, his dark eyes searching Darius' own for something that the lieutenant knew not. "But… you  _are_  very obedient, and  _that_  quality may outweigh your failings."

An insult and a compliment at the same time.

"I am what I am, sir." Darius replied, and he hoped his meaning crossed to the other man with as much conviction as he could bring to bear. He would not change for these sorts of men; he would fight in their manner, and would not keep his head low, but he would never change to suit them.

The other man smiled thinly; whether he was amused or disgusted was utterly beyond the lieutenant.

"I am Lieutenant-General Draythe Darkwill," He said by way of introduction, and let the implications fall onto Darius' shoulders. "And I will tell you: you are not very impressive, for a man who took the Baton away from a Darkwill."

 **By the gods** , a small part of him wished to have never been named Baton in the first place. He felt frustrated with their expectations, and it did not help that his temper had already been stirred up by de Roquefort's machinations.

To add to the coals, he was hungry, he had only slept for an hour or two in the past day after being shot at and beat down again and again,  _and_  he was surrounded by people who outranked him in every way. The only way all of this could have been made worse is if he had forgotten to wear his trousers.

"Perhaps," Darius said cuttingly, injecting all his ill will into his tone. "He should have worked  _harder_."

The entire room seemed to stand still, watching- waiting. One could not simply say such a thing to a Darkwill. Having said what he thought, and knowing full well that he could be magicked off the face of the earth if Draythe so wished, Darius stood his ground and stared back.

Draythe's eyes shifted, and the lieutenant found open amusement, instead of ire.

"Yes." said Boram's eldest, and the room collectively released the breath it had been holding back. "Yes, he should have. I was  _very_  disappointed- and Father was too. Bare your fangs more often, little wolf; you will find that much easier. May we begin, Marcus?"

"Of course," Marcus du Couteau said, and he cleared his throat and waved at the map table. "To business; commanders of the 2nd and 5th Legions, this is our order of battle tomorrow."

With a lazy stare, Draythe flicked his hand and a magical copy of the battlefield projected itself onto the table, and now Darius understood why the map table had been deliberately left without any sort of indicator at all.

With hues of blue for Demacians and hues of green for the Noxians, little boxes marked in the style he had learned all those years in Boram's Point appeared on the map. It did not include any formation below that of a Corps, so it was fairly clean and easy to comprehend with smaller units already included in the count. There were roughly seven hundred thousand Demacians on the field, versus a million or so Noxians.

Every single asset was marked out from supply convoys to naval fleets, with little arrows that indicated paths the troops were likely to take. The wispy villages were detailed down to the very roof tiles and the magic even mimicked the density of the fog in some places over the Howling Marsh.

Instinctively he searched for his parent unit, the 5th Corps of the 2nd Legion, and found it where it was supposed to be, billeted next to the 7th Corps. As far as Draythe's conjuration went,  _that_  was correct.

 _How does he know this?_  Darius found himself wondering as he admired the display.  _More to the point- is this all true?_

"For those of you who are familiar with the concept," Draythe began, as if what he had just done was child's play. Considering the Eternal General and the feats of magic he had done even before this campaign, it probably was.

"There are fourteen Demacian generals on the field at this moment against our five; they have arranged their Divisions into seven Task Forces, and form a shield line that stretches from the foot of the Freljord down to the old gates at Mogron Pass. The only way this line can be broken is if we force it to direct its strength somewhere else so that we can flank it."

"To that end, the 2nd and 5th Legions will command Lightshield's attention here." General de Montlieu pointed at a Demacian township labeled 'La Forbie'.

"At the same time," Marcus du Couteau added. "We will take the 3rd and 4th Legions to force his hand here, at the village of Blackvale. If he does not answer us in the north, he must answer us in the south."

Darkwill's eldest flicked his wrist, and a ball of light above the Howling Marsh twisted into the silhouette of a man. "My father stands with the 1st and the 6th, close to the Howling Marsh, the former in full view of the Demacian army, the latter underneath a veil of magic. The moment we begin our assault, he will press the Legions forward, and catch Spiritmight unawares from his flank."

Darius looked down at the map. There were rectangles with simple dots in the center- artillery icons- too, that hinted some sort of shore battery installation along the Demacian coast. A Noxian fleet was close by; fifteen first rates, with a flotilla of frigates and sloops. The Demacian fleet, true to the Demacian doctrine of defense, was nowhere close enough to provide aid if the shore batteries were to be attacked. Their priority, clearly, was the city-state itself.

"Are those shore batteries along the western coast?" Darius queried.

"Demacian shore batteries," Marcus du Couteau supplied at once. "Somewhere between fifty to a hundred  _Paixhans_  guns pointed seaward; they are eighty pounders, with an effective range of two miles. Those would make quick work of our ships of the line, and Admiral Inglefield has said he would not go near the coast, for as long as those batteries should stand."

Darius considered it; if the 2nd went northward two or so miles, they would be able to take the coastal batteries with very little trouble. Once those shore batteries were disabled, it would allow the Noxian army to use naval artillery to soften the Demacians' positions along the line, in addition to threatening their capital with bombardment.

"May I offer a suggestion, sir?" Darius looked up at General de Montolieu for confirmation. The General stared at Draythe, and only gave his assent when Boram's eldest inclined his head only very slightly in response.

"If the 2nd marches northward still, it could reach these batteries and capture them; then the 10th Fleet may slip past, and we may yet have complete access of the western coast."

Draythe made a very low hiss, much like a cat would. Darius had heard of the rivalry between the Army and the Navy, but he personally cared very little for whoever had the most accolades and victories. An asset was an asset for him and he did not want to waste it at all, but perhaps Draythe was the sort to indulge in rivalries instead of victories.

"Only if we are able to take La Forbie," Draythe said at length, tapping the tips of his gauntleted fingers against the wood as he confirmed Darius' suspicions. "We shall see."

Darius sought out his parent unit. The 2nd and 5th Legions had been divided into their respective Corps on the field, and he could see the 5th Corps going against the Demacian's 10th Division. He could not remember much, given that his mind was currently to escape out of his ears and was smashing its face against the walls of his skull when it could not, but he knew the 10th Division's nickname was 'Diehards' and it was well earned as far as he could tell. Unstoppable force meet immovable object.

Without a doubt, the grand plan was aggressive and sounded very definite, but then again  _they_  were the ones at a disadvantage, not the Demacians. Even with such an overwhelming assault and with numbers apparently on their side, they would not be able to maintain the push; not with morale at an all-time low and most of their men hungry and tired from having fought a fighting retreat across five miles in the past three days.

"I do not think we can-" Darius began, but Draythe cut him off.

"Are you a coward, lieutenant?" Boram's eldest challenged him, and Darius became very aware of the room and its many eyes.

He was no coward, but surely- there was someone else here who saw this move as folly? What was so cowardly about waiting a day, about spending twenty-four hours to catch their breath, to sleep, to eat?

Given that most of the army was made of nothing but half-conscious shambling creatures, it would do so much good. Why couldn't they see that all of this was best done when their men were ready for such a thing and not when they had barely enough energy to  _stand_?

He did not feel sorry, only- all of this was such a  _waste_ , and he became acutely reminded of Scraps and the boy's death. He had spared the child from the field in order to make better use of his skills. Even though he had died horribly, the boy had managed to do so much more.

"I am no coward, sir. I only wish for a day," Darius said with barely withheld disgust. "A day's rest would help us achieve this goal."

"We cannot give ourselves even a day," Marcus du Couteau's voice was gentle, but very firm. Perhaps he had thought the same, but circumstances behind the shield line had made him assent to the unsustainable plan. "This line will only press on, and when they entrench, we can do very little but flee."

"If we do this tomorrow, then Lightshield  _must_  answer," de Montolieu added, with a strain in his voice that Darius' sleep deprived mind interpreted as desperation. "He  _cannot_  be everywhere at once. His numbers will not allow for it. He will fall  _somewhere_ , and there we will regain ground that we sorely need. We cannot let them dictate where and when we should strike."

Darius looked at them all in askance. "But to fight tomorrow would be folly and nothing but placing a wager using the lives of a million men; that somehow, somewhere along the line, these Demacians would simply  _bend_  to numerical superiority. Sir-"

"I would not gamble with anything  _else_." Draythe said sharply, and he was not at all sorry as he continued. "The men are here because my father told them to be here, and these men will die when I  _allow_  them to die. If you have any other plan, Baton, I would hear it now."

 _Him_? Make a plan that would somehow placate two Generals, Boram's eldest  _and_  the rest of the army? He hadn't the faintest idea what could suit them. His mind was twisting itself into knots trying to think, and his body was all for collapsing underneath him.

"I do not, sir." He said finally, when the silence had become too much. He could not stop himself from flinching when Draythe slammed his hand on the map table.

"You do not,  _sir_." Boram's eldest hissed back. He did not scream or raise his voice, but the weight of his words and the sheer acidity of it were palpable in the room. "You do not. You have the privilege to sit here and to suggest possible courses of action, but to decide and to question High Command and its decisions, you most certainly do not. While at council you are nothing but a privileged observer; you still are a lieutenant and your words hold no weight here. Do you understand?"

It was a very bitter concept to swallow; not because he was chastened in front of all the commanders and generals in the room, but because he felt there was no point in asking him to come in the first place.

After all, why call him here if there was absolutely no questioning the strategic plan? Why ask for his opinion if he was merely going to be told to shut up? Why hear him out, if he was only going to be ignored?

Perhaps, there was some point in all of this, but right now he was very tired and all he wanted was to eat something hot, to take a bath and to sleep on a bed. He did not want to bicker like a child; he had no energy for it at all.

"Yes sir," Darius said with gritted teeth. "I understand."

"You have your orders," Draythe shifted his glance from him to the rest of the commanders in the room. "I expect nothing but the very best from all of  _you_."

With that, the war council adjourned. The commanders filed out of the room whispering lowly to each other; no doubt discussing their chances on the morrow. The Generals stood with Draythe for a while, speaking to each other and gesticulating to the map table; it felt much like  _they_  had never come to any sort of satisfactory plan even before calling all the commanders to the map room, and instead had to content themselves with a risky gamble that could either end in an outright massacre or a victorious push.

Darius understood the necessity of making a choice as he had often been told back in the Academy that sacrificing innumerable lives was part of victory- but knowing it could happen and being the target of such were two different matters entirely.

He could very well die tomorrow, and no one would care. Those who did know him would probably be disappointed instead of crushed. Draven on the other hand, would probably celebrate by jumping up and down on his corpse.

He had never wanted to ruin Draven's chances, but if he had stayed silent, he would not have a brother any longer. He had gone through so much to keep his word, and had taken on the pain and responsibility willingly so that Draven could prosper. There was no doubt in Darius' mind that he had done his duty as a brother, that he had kept his promise to his parents with that act.

Draven would not be an officer, but at least, he would endure. That was what he had said to his brother, the moment Draven had cornered him. Barely five minutes had passed since the pit fights had ended when the lankier, younger man had taken his blade to his older brother's throat. It was not very hard, as Darius was not in his armor.

" **I FUCKING HAD IT UNDER CONTROL, YOU FUCKING MORON!** " Draven's words had been so heavy with vehemence that the younger man could hardly stop himself from shaking. " **I WAS PLAYING HIM. I WAS MAKING A SHOW! ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO?** "

"A show," Darius had replied snidely as he glared at Draven. "That is not what you do in a war."

"Don't you fucking get it yet?" Draven had snapped irritably. " **I'M NOT A FUCKING CHILD!**  I  _know_  that's what you don't do in the battlefield! That was a fucking pit fight, and people  _expect_  to have a show! I gave them one!"

That had given Darius pause. To act like a dotard and to deliberately prolong a fight for the sake of… giving a show?

 _Why_? What point was there in doing something like that?

Darius was no stranger to pit fighting. Even before he had been cut for the Crucible, the training staff had them fighting each other, spilling blood onto the black sands of the Wolf's Pit. The only thing that mattered to the officer-candidates then was to put their opponent down in the best, most efficient way possible.

Chief Instructor di Castellamonte and the rest of the training staff had never told them to make a  _show_ , had never told them to  _perform_ \- they had simply ordered them to beat their assigned sparring partner, and the how had been left to the officer-candidates themselves.

But Korovino, and the culture of the men who were trained in it, was markedly different. Now he understood  _why_  this camp was frowned on by the rest of the officers, now he understood  _why_  Strongbow had been so demeaning and acidic. This place made nothing but butchers and disgusting showmen. He couldn't understand how his father had survived  _this_  with his mind intact.

 _Or maybe he didn't_ , his pessimism had sneered.  _He named you after the man who cut off his leg, after all._

Perhaps he had been in the wrong. Perhaps he had been stupid. Perhaps Draven had planned it all along. His younger brother didn't know much else, but he obviously knew how Korovino worked and how its training master molded them all. Darius had acted in the way that he felt he had to, but he had never thought that Draven could know more than he had at that moment.

Feeling the crushing misery and guilt in his gut, Darius had bitten his lip and had stared at his brother. He didn't know why he couldn't put his trust into the younger man- perhaps it was because he had spent so much time watching over him that he could scarcely imagine any other way.

"Lower your blade," Darius had finally said, when he found that he could speak. His throat had bobbed against the edge of Draven's blade, nicking his flesh. Out of the corner of his eye had seen men gathering and watching the two of them with marked interest. This was yet another scene he hadn't wanted. "I am willing to speak to you, if that is what you wish; there is hardly any need for  _this_."

"What if I don't fucking want to?" Draven's jaw had set, and he pressed the blade closer to Darius' throat, drawing blood and staining the edge of the officer's collar. "What if I fucking want to see you  _beg_ , huh? You fucking ruin my chances, you embarrass me in front of every single fucking marshal and now you're telling me you're ashamed of being seen with me?"

"No, not  _that_." Darius had corrected. "I… I know I am wrong. There is no reason that we cannot settle this like sensible men; lower your blade."

"Beg me for it,  _maybe_  I'll change my mind." Draven had replied petulantly. His eyes took on a wicked light that Darius did not like at all. "Or maybe I'll just keep my blade right here, at your throat. Ain't this a sight: the Baton of Boram's Point- fucked over by a maggot from Korovino?"

The beast of Darius' temper had stirred then for the first time in years, yawning against the chains of his self-control. He had been very easy to make angry when he had been a boy, his mind taken over by absolutely consuming and righteous rage.

That unquestionable anger had driven him to Adrian's house all those years ago to make his point, and when his parents had been executed for his lack of control, he had kept the beast in chains, ignored and behind so many walls at the back of his mind as rationality overtook emotion.

To wit, these days Darius was a man whose anger was not easily roused- but the blow to the Academy was not one he could simply let past him, and besides, there were people watching him. He could not let this slight slip past, even if the one delivering the remark was his younger brother.

He absolutely could not.

Darius' eyes had narrowed briefly before he moved around Draven's blade, lowering himself to the ground and slamming the flat of his arm against Draven's knee. The younger man gave a howl of pain as the cartilage of his knee snapped, and then he fell back into the mud.

The beast had hissed its approval as his frame began to shake- not from guilt, but from sheer fury. He would not let this pass. He could not. Draven had to answer for his words, and Darius was going to beat the answer into his stupid bones.

"I fucking  _raised_  you. I went into Boram's Point for  _you_." Darius had spat down at his brother. He had reached out and had taken Draven's wrists in his hands, clamped down hard enough that the younger man was forced to let go of his blades. "I fucking  _gave_  you everything I had, and when I did only what I thought was best, you still think that I wish nothing but  _ruin_  for you?"

"Why the fuck not," Draven had bared his teeth, still conscious and cocky despite his disadvantageous position. "You've done it already- twice!"

Darius had only a second's worth of warning before the younger man had pulled him down. Curling on himself like a spring, Draven had launched his remaining leg at Darius' groin. The blow to his privates had made the lieutenant give a low shout, and he had let go of Draven as he had stumbled back. A second later, he had crumpled to the ground, blinking and twitching as the unholy pain spread upward.

"This only makes the third!" Draven had said as he took a handful of his brother's hair in his hand. Pulling Darius up even as the lieutenant resisted, the younger brother had curled his hand into a fist and smashed it against his brother's face.

As far as punches went, it was not very painful compared to what Darius had suffered many times before, but having been kicked in his parts added to the pain that was assaulting his senses.

"You fucking put me down for getting a job; you put me down for getting ahead, and now this!" Draven had slammed his working knee against Darius' chin. The Baton of Boram's Point had tasted blood as his teeth cut into his tongue. The world spun as he had found himself on his back, and then Draven had blocked out the sun, straddling his brother and punching him repeatedly. **"WELL FUCK YOU!"**

At that point, Darius had become acutely reminded of three events in his life when he had still been an officer-candidate in Boram's Point: his first night in Alexander de Croix's training flag, the moment in the Crucible when Hawklight was trying to choke him to death, and the Instigation.

Memories of solitary confinement, of being bound and tortured for the sake of loyalty had filled his senses. The bitter taste of being incapacitated and beaten had filled his mouth and had mixed with the cold panic and sheer frenzy of a trauma not completely cured. His eyesight became stained with tinges of red. Sounds had become dull and distant. Pain had been muffled.

He had reached up despite the punches, had taken Hawklight's throat in his hands and squeezed. The man's arms were longer compared to his, but Darius was stouter, stronger. As his brother had beaten away at him with palpable panic, he had remained and maintained his hold though he was near blind with pain.

He  _had_  to take back control; he  _had_  to dictate the tempo of the fight. He could  _not_  let Hawklight set the pace.  _No one_  could keep him incapacitated, no one. He never,  _ever_  wanted to be held under  _again_ -

He had felt Hawklight shift, and when the man's weight went off to the side, he had rolled with it. The world rightened and through the blood and swelling of his face, he could barely see Hawklight- his eyes were rolling in his head, his tongue popping out of his mouth. His face was practically purple. A minute more, maybe two, and then this thing would be dead and he would be-

There and then, he had felt a sharp pain in his gut, but he was too deep in memories to bother. In his mind, it had felt like the Crucible again; it was him, or Hawklight, and he was going to  **kill**  Hawklight to make-

" **UNHAND HIM, CANDIDATE!** " came the sharp howl to his left. The tone had been familiar and authoritative, so like any good officer-candidate, Darius' head had snapped up, his hands moving away from Hawklight's throat.

He didn't know how many minutes he had spent, staring blearily down at the man underneath him, before his mind finally understood that this was  _Draven_ , not Hawklight. It wasn't raining, but the ground was muddy all the same, and-

" **GET OFF**!" Strongbow's voice had been full and loud, and Darius had meekly and quietly stood up. He had looked down at his shaking, bloodstained hands then, and had shifted his gaze to the brother he had almost choked to death.

Strongbow was by Draven's side, two fingers on the side of his throat.

 _Carotid_ , his mind had said, and it sounded very sleepy and not at all focused. _If cut, exsanguinates in two minutes._

He had known then that he should feel remotely disgusted, and he had almost broken his promise to his parents- but it had felt so very  _right_ , to choke Draven for what he had said, to punish him for placing him at a disadvantage. Confused, he hadn't known what to think or even say, and so he had stayed silent and watched as Strongbow had breathed a sigh of relief and sat down next to the unmoving Draven.

"Oh thank the gods, he's only unconscious," The archer had mumbled as he rubbed at both eyes with his palms. "Ugh…"

Darius had become vaguely aware that it should've been  _him_  by Draven's side, that he should never have tried to choke his brother to death in the first place- but then again there was the slight and he felt so  _angry_  that nothing else had mattered except for retribution.

It had scared him to his very bones. He had lost control of the beast and he had thought very little of his brother. Nothing truly kept him by Draven's side save for his promise, and even then, there was still no guarantee. And then he had been seeing Hawklight, not Draven, and that fact disturbed him more than the rest.

His throat had felt very tight, and his stomach had roiled in his belly like an unbound barrel in a ship's hold. The world had felt closed. In the silence that followed, he had become acutely aware of the fact that he was breathing very hard and very fast.

Strongbow had pushed himself up from the ground, and made his way over to Darius. He had lifted a hand- perhaps he wanted to touch him on the shoulder- but then thought against it.

"Come on," The archer had said, and his tone was so familiar that Darius had felt bound to obey it. "Come on, let's go. Let's… let's  _not_  stay."

"Sir," Darius had said dumbly, and he had felt very small and child-like again. "… Yes sir."

Back then, at the very peak of the Noxian advance a month ago, returning to the front line across the Serpentine River and deep into Demacian territory from Korovino Redoubt had taken them two days' worth of marching. Darius had spent the rest of his liberty and the road time thinking about what he had just done.

In the end, he had told himself that he couldn't renege on his promise to his parents, and that was the moment he made an agreement with a provost marshal to inform him of his brother's movements and unit assignments. He had told himself that distance, the hectic frontline and the loss of his runner necessitated such an arrangement, even though deep down he knew full well that it was guilt.

He stood in the hallway for a while; long enough for de Roquefort to notice that the lieutenant was not with him and to turn back and see if Darius had gotten lost somehow. The corridor was empty, the Generals seemingly still in their deliberations, as de Roquefort reached over and shook him on the shoulder.

Darius looked up, and the older man cocked his head to the side. His face- somewhere between a smirk and a snarl- reminded Darius of his slight. Despite his exhaustion, he turned and quickly had the captain up against the wall, arm twisted and almost at breaking point.

"Do not think that I forgot what you have done," Darius said as he pushed de Roquefort's arm up uncomfortably.

"What have I done, hm?" de Roquefort spat back, disadvantaged as he was and reminding Darius of Draven's defiance so much that he felt the beast of his temper hiss and snarl. "Messages are lost all the time."

Darius would have literally pulled de Roquefort's arm off his body and beaten him gladly with it, but at that moment, a nearby door slid open on oiled hinges, and Draythe Darkwill was the first to see them.

Boram's eldest merely rolled his eyes. "If there is blood on the floor," He said over his shoulder as he departed. "I expect it to be cleaned."

The next to see them- they were too shocked by the Lieutenant-General's response to even move- was de Montolieu, and the General looked at them for a very long time and in silence before he too rolled his eyes and walked away.

Army regulations normally would see the two of them flogged, but evidently, the punishment of insubordination and the enforcement of rules were not high on the list of priorities within the Noxian army as of the moment.

Marcus du Couteau was the last to leave, and the General looked down at them as if they were nothing but two very young boys scuffling with each other about toys that never belonged to them in the first place.

"Stop that nonsense right now," Marcus said with a disappointed look at them both. "You are officers, not  _children_."

"Sir," Darius said. "He stopped my messages-"

"Sir," de Roquefort said. "Messages are lost all the time-"

" _Enough_." Marcus massaged his temples. "I know full well what has occurred here and I will tell you; the motion for tribunal and the office of High Executioner exist for  _this_. One can only rely on  _speculation_  for so long."

That brought de Roquefort into a panic. "Sir," He said very quickly as he reddened and quivered. "Sir, I-"

"Release him, lieutenant." Marcus looked at him. Darius did not do it kindly; he twisted de Roquefort's arm up enough to make him think twice about doing such a thing, and then shoved him to the floor with disgust.

As de Roquefort padded away, cradling his poor arm, Marcus du Couteau seemed amused now, rather than disappointed.

"Sir?" Darius broached out of curiosity.

"Your mother would have slit his throat weeks ago." Marcus pointed out. "And your father would have torn him apart with his bare hands right there in the council room the moment he found out; but you? You waited until no one was around to see, and then had your way with him but the moment you were interrupted, you actually listened to me. That would be a first."

Darius didn't know if he was being insulted or complimented, and so he merely gawked at the General.

"Execution," Marcus said. "Rather than intervention; that would suit you better, I think."

"Sir," Darius said, still very confused and wondering if there was some sort of code that he had to know before he could make head or tails of this conversation.

"A word of advice, lieutenant," Marcus said with a twinkle in his eye as he turned and left Darius as well. "Threaten spiteful fools in public if they irk you, so that you can say you are man of your word when you kill them."

He was alone in the hallway again, and was all the more confused for it. At length, his stomach decided to remind him of his failing obligations toward it. He pushed all of that to the back of his mind to think of much later, when he had the time and the energy to do so, and took the stairs two at a time.

They had started the meeting at the fifteenth hour; he had not eaten for a full day now.

Camp Adder's mess was not very hard to find; given that his mind mostly resided in his gut now rather than in his head, he followed the scent of food blindly. The skies made it seem as if it was nine o'clock rather than six, and he tripped over a rock or two along the way.

The mess hall was brightly lit, with two doors so filled with light that his befuddled mind equated it to the gates of the Hereafter. The sound of companionable laughter and cheer only added to the effect, and Darius went straight for the doorway that emitted the most noise.

It was the conscripted men's commissary.

 **"** **OFFICER IN THE MESS, YOU WORMS! STAND TO!"** A voice hollered to the side of his head.

Darius reached up and massaged his poor ear- the speaker was the Sergeant Major for Camp Adder, and he had been standing next to the door as was his wont. The man was staring at Darius expectantly. Hungry and mildly surprised, Darius looked at him, and then at the conscripted men and women standing at attention, their evening meal half-finished on the numerous tables. The food that the trays held were not much: grey meat vaguely reminiscent of chicken swimming in an ocean of thin soup and rough rice.

They all looked as harried as he was, even worse, and it was clear that he had interrupted a time that gave them some measure of joy. To wit, there was a very short, thin-faced and brown-eyed youth in the hall that looked straight at him and seemed very disappointed, his hair tucked underneath a large leather cap, his body covered with clothes too big for him.

Was he supposed to-  _oh_.

"As you were," He said softly, and the Sergeant Major nodded in satisfaction as the rest of the conscripted men grumbled and settled back into their meal. The eerie silence gave way to low talking; whatever merriment they had was obviously out of the question now that Darius was here.

Slowly, awkwardly, Darius turned around and left the conscripted men's mess. The other doorway was much quieter, the scent of food stronger, and when he entered he was surrounded by better attired men and women who were talking in very smooth tones. The décor was much better also, with tables and chairs more suited for a restaurant rather than a military mess hall. A band was even playing across the room, and he stood confused for a moment before he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Have you seen Paradise at last?" came Strongbow's joking tone.

"Food." Darius said blearily. "Sir."

"You're supposed," Strongbow led him over to where he had been sitting close to the band; he had been dining with no one in particular. "To be able to keep your head when you're under duress; that was the whole point of starving you back in Boram's Point."

"Never dug so many holes in my life," Darius mumbled back. "Or spent three days showing my back to be fired on."

"Oh, the woes of heavy infantry." Strongbow said with a laugh and a roll of his eyes. "Wait a bit for Greyson; he'll put you to rights."

Darius blinked as a man approached them, and soon there was a tray in front of him divided in four segments; he had cheese, biscuits, ham and grapes and stewed lamb and vegetables on the upper portion, while there was a healthy mound of mashed potatoes across and a siding of beans in some sort of soup on the lower portion.

He gave Greyson a thankful nod, and then applied himself to the meal with such speed that he was asking for seconds when Strongbow uncorked the bottle of port and held it out to him.

"No," Darius said, feeling much better and in control of himself now that he had just eaten. "I'm not drinking. And you shouldn't either."

"Just one," Strongbow said with a nudge. "We're allowed one; given what happened before, I shudder to go beyond."

This did not satisfy the Wolfman's son, and he glared at Strongbow for a while before the archer gave a dramatic sigh and poured for himself. "Suit yourself."

Darius ate his second helping in silence, which Strongbow did not interrupt at all but for the odd remark towards the band for their playing. Eventually, Darius pushed his second empty tray away, and then said. "Do you know our orders for tomorrow?"

"To throw ourselves at the Demacians' spear points for very little profit? Yes," Strongbow lifted the bottle. "This is why I'm doing this. Gods above, I am  _all_  for dying in a blaze of glory; may it be literal or figurative, but I would prefer to  _not_  die from sheer stupidity."

"Willingly achieving a hangover is stupid,  _and_  it kills people," Darius commented.

"No, a stupid man who drinks will have a hangover," Strongbow said confidently, though all of that sounded quite impossible to Darius. "I am not stupid."

The younger lieutenant resisted the urge to snort.  _But didn't you drink yourself silly only a few weeks ago?_

"Where are you headed tomorrow?" Darius asked instead.

"To La Forbie, with the rest of the light infantry," Strongbow shrugged his shoulders and said unrepentantly. "And into the gates of the Void, after you and your fellows have died already."

"Comforting thought." Darius replied dryly.

"The Chief always said I was the most optimistic one in the whole Academy." Strongbow said with a laugh.

"Where are they now?" Darius couldn't help but ask; the training staff of Boram's Point had reputations of their own before they had gone behind the walls.

"General du Couteau, as always, embraces his own." Strongbow said at once. "So the Chief- ah, no, Captain di Castellamonte is with the 5th Legion, under his say-so. Comm- ah, blast… Major de Montfort is off with the 6th Legion- Boram's special request. I am with the 2nd, as you already know. Nikett had been with the 1st at Jacob's Ford, as were ah- Clausen and Krieg-Windsor so ah,  _they_  are dead, along with everyone else in that blasted place."

That made Darius start. "Most of the training staff is dead?"

"Yes, they were with the 1st." Strongbow said very quietly, and he looked down at the bottle in his hands. "... Well, I was not the youngest, and some of them more or less ignored me because my House is half and half; but they were a sort of family all the same, you understand?"

Darius massaged his temples as Strongbow shook his head and slammed the butt of the bottle onto the table, interrupting the other officers as they dined.

"Well, war is war and it is done," The archer said very quickly. "We cannot linger on such thoughts, not with tomorrow on our heads."

"We cannot," Darius agreed, although the Battle of Jacob's Ford had been five months ago. Strongbow had never once said that most of the training staff was dead.

"Who  _else_  is dead?" He asked with grim humor; he had not really expected an answer. Strongbow looked down at his fingers, and began to mumble. Darius didn't recognize the names, but it was their rank that struck him as very odd.

"Majors," Darius said with a shake of his head. "Majors, all of them."

"Yes, well, the Demacians took all our border camps; the ones that couldn't hold off a fly, much less a Demacian division, that is." Strongbow replied. "Kalkreath and Bardenheuer; I taught those two back at the Academy. I do not believe, for one second, that their men would simply desert those two."

"One could believe all one wants and still be wrong." Darius replied severely.

"Well, I think they desert because they do not want to die." Strongbow said. "… I cannot imagine what else would motivate  _me_."

"How about disbelief or disgust?" Darius pitched in, his ill will all the more apparent. "Or… stupid politics?"

"Or those." Strongbow said with a shrug. "How are we to know the workings of a deserter?"

"Or," grumbled a voice to their side. "The simplest answer: fear."

The two lieutenants hurriedly made room for a hulking shell of a man, whose arms ended in iron rings instead of hands, whose legs were nothing more than wooden stumps.

It was Urgot, the incumbent High Executioner, and from the look and smell of his bloodstained and slightly muddy apron, he had recently come in from work. Darius, whose armor was peppered with grime, was also not very presentable. Compared to the both of them, a pig happily wallowing in mud was absolutely immaculate.

Strongbow self-consciously reached over and pushed a few breadcrumbs off the table and onto his front.

"Urgot," Darius said, and Strongbow elbowed him sharply.

"High Executioner," The former instructor corrected in a half-cough.

"Sir." Darius added hastily.

Urgot settled himself on the table, and without hesitation he extended his ring-hand and stared at the bottle of port pointedly. Strongbow filled him a cup respectfully, and then placed it carefully in Urgot's right iron ring.

It took Urgot only one swig, and then he held his cup out to have Strongbow pour for him again.

"Ya grown a bit," Urgot said to Darius with a rheumatic wheeze.

"Sir," Darius said again; today was clearly a day in which he did not know what else to say to people who seemed to know more than he did.

Strongbow poured another cup. It went down the High Executioner's throat twice as fast. Urgot patted his considerable belly for a moment before he gave a loud belch, and the rest of the officers in the mess threw their table the nastiest looks they could possibly give.

"Ya know about the deserters then?" Urgot hiccupped lowly.

"Yes sir," Darius said grimly. He had three deserters that morning- Lash, Anders and Dover. He had reported the missing men to de Roquefort as standard procedure demanded it. If the three chose to return, they would be executed. Only now did he realize that Urgot would be here at Camp Adder to do just that.

Urgot was looking at him strangely. Darius bore his stare with as much patience as he could muster.

"Then ya know," Urgot said finally, his voice barely audible with the way he went about it. "That Sion is dead."

Strongbow would have fallen off his chair in alarm if Urgot hadn't reached over to support him with his ring-hand. For his part, Darius was sitting very still; the shock had washed over him very quickly, and now he simply was… thinking.

Sion was  _dead_?

"… Ya must've been talking about other deserters then." Urgot said, almost but not quite contrite. His tone was still low, though he seemed happy to be able to share his grief. "Not supposed t'say anythin' 'bout it, but I wen' an' said it; an' now ya know."

Urgot was not an eloquent man, but he told them of Sion's death as he had heard of it from the mouths of the three deserters he had executed a day ago. The two of them stared at him in silence born of mortification and absolute disbelief. Even after he finished, none of them spoke, and Urgot took his time to wet his parched throat with another cup of port before he broke the silence.

"Ya ain't listening, but tha'fine," Urgot slurred around his wooden mug, the alcohol dulling his tongue even more. "'s fine, even I'm not listenin'."

Darius could scarcely believe it. His father's other friend was dead and hardly anyone knew. Three men had been executed for desertion, the rest of the two hundred or so men were still unaccounted for. What had happened at Camp Endurance for Sion's men to simply… leave him to die?

It was a disquieting thought, to know that the men he led now could watch him die, to know that these men would do nothing if they were given the choice.

 _I will not die like that_ , Darius decided silently, furiously. His hands closed into defiant fists. _I will not let myself become a wretched thing._

"I… well," Strongbow began cautiously. "It… it seems to me that he was a poor leader."

Urgot leered down at him.

"I will not mince words; I think you know this as well as I do," Strongbow went on, despite his clear anxiety with speaking against someone as famous as Urgot. His normally level voice was unusually quick. "If you make a very poor leader, you naturally cannot be trusted by those you claim to command; no one will follow you. If you inspire them to do more, then they will go with you to the very end of the world, I think."

Darius could scarcely imagine such a concept; to trust someone with his life, to believe, with all his heart and mind, that that person would take them through hell and back.

He had once been so very naïve, but he had squandered his parents and now- he could hardly trust his own brother to take care of himself. There was very little room in his heart for trust, and he found himself settling more into his disquiet.

Urgot reflected on the archer's words for a while, and then he said morosely. "I trusted two men, once. They be dead now."

There was a palpable silence afterward. It was painful to be in Urgot's shoes. He was now the last of three once glorious warriors who delighted in every day spent on the battlefield. His compatriots the Wolfman and the Juggernaut of Noxus were dead- the former willingly sacrificed himself for the sake of his child, the latter throwing himself into battle for the last time despite overwhelming odds- while his own extensive injuries had forced him to take up the trade of a glorified butcher and to plod along what remained of his life.

After the fifth minute, Urgot gave a brisk laugh that made his sides blow out and fall back like sails.

"Well," said the High Executioner as he took the bottle of port for himself. "In th' end we are all going to die. It doesn' matter when."

"What matters," Darius said lowly; memories of his father's words all those years ago moving to the surface. "is how."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**  A LOT OF PLANNING! Horrible internet aside, it's a miracle my mobile data is letting me post this. This would be part two of the monster Chapter 19 was supposed to be.


	22. In Right Action

_Dusk: a blade of honey between our shadows, draining._

_Say amen. Say amend._

_Say yes. Say yes_

_anyway._

**On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong)**

* * *

**THREE HOURS LATER…**

There was a very sharp scent in the air that evening close to the burnt out shell of a farmhouse; the sort of pungent and invading tang that crept into one's nostrils and stayed there. Thirteen year old Garen couldn't tell if it was blood or something else entirely.

He stood outside the wreck with the rest of the Dauntless Vanguard; five thousand men and women surrounding the house in square formation, with two ranks of men standing between the current occupants of the shell and the rest of the world.

There would be no sneaking past this line either; mages were positioned at strategic points, their arms raised to the heavens, incantations on their lips. They maintained a magical veil that shut out the rest of the world. If the stories of Boram Darkwill having eyes and ears in every shadow were to be believed, the Eternal General would find no purchase in this little place at all.

Inside the King and his generals were talking of tomorrow's strategy, but as Lord Spiritmight had dismissed him earlier from his side saying that he 'needed a father's education before a general's guidance', Garen was with his father Marcus, and his mind was wandering as he tried not to let the senior Crownguard's crushing disappointment affect him.

His instructors at the Royal Academy often said that Noxians went through life with nary a regard for the man next to them. Despite having been raised to know that Noxians were irredeemable and absolutely despicable, Garen often found himself pitying the enemy; they had spirit and heart to match the Demacians aplenty, but were not as well off or as well treated. Perhaps, if people had been kinder to them, their valiance could have done more good.

The young Crownguard forced himself to stop thinking then. His father wouldn't want such thoughts.

This, and the surrounding area, had once been the homestead of a Noxian family. The family had burnt the place down to the ground instead of allowing the approaching Demacian shield line to use it as a sort of fortification, and had fled long before the embers had gone cold.

At least,  _that_  was what Colonel Gainsworth had said earlier that day to his father when the man had ridden to the Commander of the Dauntless Vanguard in order to give his report three hours earlier.

Given what he had seen at the sad camp at the edge of the Howling Marsh, it would not be unusual for Gainsworth to have ridden up to the homestead asking for the Noxians to flee if they valued their lives, and for the Noxians to have responded with violence and defiance instead of bending knee for the sake of practicality and self-preservation.

For all Garen knew, he could be standing on top of blood and ground up bones instead of ashes and burnt bricks—but he was thinking of things that were unacceptable again, and it was with a minute sigh that he tried to stand straight and still, kept his eyes to the distant darkening horizon and ignored the rain as it fell.

Inside the burnt out house, King Jarvan III stood at the head of a folding table heavily burdened with maps and little figurines that stood for troop formations and fortifications. The little things meant so much to those who knew what they stood for: seven hundred thousand men arranged in seven Task Forces —Justice, Amity, Honor, Lucent, Shield, Majesty and Valor.

To the King's right was his brother-in-law the Duke of Endurn. Across the table were the Generals Wendelin Esslin and Bayard Cardigan of Task Force Honor, General Florin Berell of Task Force Justice, General Kennard Lesauvage of Task Force Amity, and all the proxies who stood in for the rest of the generals positioned farther to the north and south.

All in all, an artillery strike would see the entirety of the Demacian army bereft of king and commanders, but given the defenses outside, they were not entirely vulnerable.

Like all meetings that involved the highest echelons of Demacian military hierarchy, however, no one but the King, his brother-in-law and the Captain-General could speak freely; the rest would have to seek permission if they so wanted to be heard.

Captain-General Ivar Purvis was not here, however; the head of all the Knightly Orders was to the north where the King believed he would do the most good guarding the young Jarvan IV. The Captain-General's proxy, Lord du Fontaine, was here in his stead, but as he was only a deputy to him was not accorded the right of free speech.

"We've given Boram a good licking thus far," The Duke of Endurn said as he indicated the much reduced Noxian line on the map. "Another battle and we could well see the very gates of Noxus ourselves. Constantly on the run, Darkwill would be hard pressed to keep morale, and would be bleeding men at every encampment."

"How fare our supply lines?" King Jarvan III mused out loud as he tapped a gloved hand on supply depots two days away from their position, and at the little pencil lines that ran away from the Demacian front along the plains.

Where the Noxians would instead live off the land they found themselves in, the Demacians were the sort to maintain supply lines and depots across their territory, where there was at least one depot to be found every ten miles. However, the Demacian army was now a good five miles across the traditional city-state line.

The farther the army marched from Demacia, the longer it took for their supplies to reach them, and for their wounded and dead to return home. Being reasonable creatures, they did not want to leave their dead behind, and so went through much trouble to ensure that every one of their fallen returned home to the city of light.

If there ever was a problem with how rations and ammunition were making their way to the men who needed them, it would be a severe blow to the Demacian military—so it was with full seriousness that the men looked to Esslin as he was the Quartermaster General, and the man cleared his throat like a schoolboy preparing to answer a stern mentor.

"I have just received the reports from the divisional quartermasters. There is no supply issue but for materiel; the aid stations and commissary tents were pitched this morning two miles behind the foremost unit for each Task Force. With the oxen occupied with carrying ballistae and trebuchets, the engineers and sappers are not certain who or what should be carrying their ordinance, if it should be carried at all."

" _If_?" The Duke of Endurn's eyebrow raised slightly. Probing, testing him. "Are you suggesting that the batteries are not worth the trouble, lad?"

Esslin shifted from one foot to the other; he was not certain of this new technology himself but he did not want to say it out loud. Trebuchets and ballistae were easy to shift about, but these new cannons were not. There was the matter of keeping the black powder dry, and safe from anything that could burst into flame. The cannons themselves were not easy to move, with some weighing over eighty pounds and needing a full team to push them about.

'Horse artillery'— teams of horses hauling sixty pounders— was still a laughable word among the men, but they would  _never_  say so in the King's face. The King felt that this new technology was worth trying if it would help them defeat Noxus, but so far the cannons had not been able to prove themselves—the Noxians had been defeated even before the batteries had been rolled into range. Most of the army did not think it was worth the bother but the King's word was the law. If he wanted to haul tubes of brass about, he would find no complainer in his midst.

The look on King Jarvan's face—inquiring, with a little quirk of his brow that suggested he would not like to hear what Esslin was thinking—made the Quartermaster General hurry to speak. "I am not saying that it cannot be done; I have written orders for the appropriation of one or two cavalry regiments across all divisions to begin hauling caissons of ammunition and cannon limbers. I merely am concerned with the…  _conduct_  of the cavalrymen-"

Most of the nobility of Demacia were cavalrymen in the army—only they could afford the horses, arms and armor. They gloried in the charge, in trampling the enemy underfoot.  _They_  would not like it if they were told to haul batteries like a common team of oxen, but this was war and their opinions did not matter. Mobile artillery was what they needed, not men who would not give infantry a fair fight.

So the King resists from grumbling, and instead replies with a firm tone. "It is not the sort of battle that these men would  _like_ , but it is what must be  _done_. Do the men need training to use the artillery they are carrying?"

Esslin bowed his head as he spoke. He did not feel comfortable in demeaning the status of the cavalry any more than he should. He did not want to have bad blood with most of Demacia's nobility. "There is no need, my King; the artillerymen can ride with the cavalry. They will manage the guns, and the cavalry will hold off any attempt to dissuade them from doing so."

"Very well; you have permission to do such." The King stared down at the rest of the map. He spent a minute in silence before he reached out and took hold of a figurine in the shape of a knight; an indicator for the Knightly Orders of Demacia.

"Do you have anything to report, Lord du Fontaine?" The King queried.

"The Captain-General sends his regards," The Captain-General's proxy said simply. "And wishes to advise you of distant lights he saw off the coast yesterday evening; it was moderately difficult to see them through the fog that lay over the sea but he managed all the same."

"We live in a strange world and see peculiar dancing lights in the Howling Marsh's fog also, but I will wager  _those_  lights cannot be anything but ships," Lord Spiritmight said at once. "How many lights, lad?"

"At most, forty-five, or so the Captain-General has informed me." The young lord said. "That was the most he could count before the fog and the encroaching night made it too difficult."

General Lesauvage raised his hand, and at Lord Spiritmight's behest, the King gave his assent for the former sailor to speak.

"If we  _are_  to consider that these lights are  _ships_ , they would likely have black hulls and black sails, so as to remain out of sight during the night." Lesauvage said as he pieced together his memories of his service at sea. "Adding the consideration that they are possibly using weather magic to hide that fleet, they must've been so confident in their deception to the point that they did not even consider extinguishing the ships' lanterns-that is why the light could make it across the sea and to our dear Captain-General's eyes."

"Forty-five," The King mused. "If those  _are_  ships, then how many ships would that make?"

"It depends how the lights are arranged, Sire, but given prior intelligence on the location of the 10th Noxian Fleet, it could possibly be five first-rates or a fair number of frigates." Lesauvage broached. "At the very worst, it is ten first-rates  _and_  more."

"We have ninety  _Paixhans_  guns along the coast; they will not go close if they give a damn for those first rates." The King said with a derisive snort. "We need only warn the men stationed there, and there will be no trouble for them."

"We may trust that to Cardigan and young Lord du Fontaine," said the Duke of Endurn with a glance and a nod at the aforementioned men. "Tonight, send word for the northern shore batteries to be put on readiness. Magic or not, we shan't be caught off guard."

General Cardigan and Lord du Fontaine nodded at once. Now, General Berell raised his hand. He had been silent thus far. After a moment, King Jarvan III gave a nod and bade him to speak.

"Are we expecting an assault on the morrow, my King?" Berell asked. "Has the Spymaster spoken?"

"Yes, he has already given me his report," The King said with a nod "I will not lie; if he speaks truth, we face a hard pounding tomorrow, and yet we cannot give them even an inch. The Spymaster believes that the Noxians will batter our entire shield line throughout the day; they will begin here at La Forbie, with possible confrontations in Blackvale and in the south close to Mogron."

There was no need to say that it would be immensely difficult to hold fast against a tide of frothing desperate warriors, but when the King had mentioned that the Spymaster had given his report everyone in the room seemed to lean forward, eagerly staring at the King and thinking of his phantom informant.

Noxian doctrine prior to the Ionian War could often be compared to a school of sharks in the sea; a constantly swirling cloud of gnashing teeth with thousands of men shifting from flank to flank with unnatural speed thanks to how their chain of command and their formations were divided. The first assaults were nothing but nibbles testing the mettle of the defenders holding against them, and if and when the Noxians smelled the metaphorical blood in the water they would mobilize and assault the wound with as much force as they could bring to bear.

In contrast, the Demacians were the type to analyze the lay of the land and to divide it into defensive lines—digging, building, damming and destroying what they felt was needed in order to funnel their opponents towards exceedingly fortified and designated bulwarks. Even years after the cessation of hostilities for the Fifth Rune War, these Demacian defensive lines and the fortifications that formed them would still remain standing as a testament to their builder's expertise.

However, this ultimately meant that the Demacian military moved significantly slower than their Noxian counterparts, and they were far more vulnerable to gaps in their defenses than the Noxians were. A soldier was only strong as the man next to him, and the same proved true for the Demacian divisions that composed the shield line. If any position along the line would fall, the rest of them would fold quicker than a house of cards.

The tried and tested Noxian tactic, therefore, was to assault the shield line before it could properly entrench, and if the Noxians were facing a fortified position they would bring down the wrath of their entire city-state upon that unfortunate garrison. The Demacians could do very little against such raw power, and given the nature of the Measured Tread they could not and would not retreat unless the King himself bade them to. Thus, the garrison often delayed as much as it could before their inevitable demise, and then the Noxian war machine would be hindered for a day or more. It was not very fair, to trade a whole garrison in exchange for mere time, but until recently, they did not know a better way.

Since the Spymaster had involved himself in the war, however, the Demacians had nothing but victory after victory. The rest of the army moved as slowly as ever, fortifying the land as they went, but under the command of brave marshals several brigades took on the role of sharks, probing the Noxian line and relying on the Spymaster's intelligence to find and destroy the Noxians' forward camps.

These same brigades kept the entire Noxian line on their heels once the camps were taken, forcing troops away from valuable resources like water or farmland and beating back foraging parties trying to resupply. If any Noxian formation thought to linger, then the rest of the Demacian army would fall on them and utterly destroy those who did not surrender.

Any word from the Spymaster these days was a blessing then, even though the man's role had absolutely nothing to do with Noxians at all; his solemn duty was to find and eliminate elements within Demacia that could threaten the King, his family or the stability of the city-state itself.

To deal with Noxians and other such external concerns was the Captain-General's duty, and  _he_  had complained in the early stages of the Spymaster's proposals that his counterpart did not fully understand the enemy—but it was their fifth victory now and the Spymaster did not seem to run out of plans at all.

Of course the man's name and identity were unknown to anyone else but the King, as was custom, but that did not stop the Captain-General from spending most of his time in sullen silence whenever the Spymaster would be mentioned.

Lord Spiritmight drummed his fingers on the map, thoughtful and grim. "Let us hear it then," The Duke said with finality; he glanced sideways at his brother-in-law. "What  _does_  the Spymaster intend?"

The King replied only after a very long time spent in thought, in which all the other officers could do was stare expectantly at the Lightshield monarch.

"It is a heavy risk, and it will demand much from all of us; he has proposed to shift the Dauntless Vanguard to the north under my son's command, instead of following me to the south as is their wont," The King traced the movement onto the map with a pencil, animatedly drawing arrows, circles and crosses on the surface of the paper where he felt there would be fighting. "Once the Vanguard has bolstered our northern forces we may yet have a chance of repelling de Montolieu and du Couteau, and if we succeed we shall have brought two Legions to their knees. They will not be able to aid the rest of their Legions in assaulting our shield line."

"Those two formed the rearguard, didn't they? I do not think that they would be very robust or tenacious when they assault our shield line. 'Tis not wise at all to send the Dauntless Vanguard away to fend off a bunch of tired sprats that Task Force Justice and your son could handle by themselves." Spiritmight noted loudly, and from the stares of the other men in the burnt out farmhouse they shared the same sentiments.

"Think you that your wisdom exceeds the Spymaster's, brother mine?" The King broached wryly.

"T'would be rather discourteous of me to think so, don't you agree?" Lord Spiritmight replied wryly. "No, brother—I merely am concerned for you  _and_  my nephew; you have Darkwill to contend with."

"So do  _you_." The King said amusedly. "Albeit the younger."

"Draythe is  _hardly_  of any concern to  _me_ ; the boy is far too eager to prove himself and will make a mistake earlier than I." Spiritmight said with a ready scowl. "Should he strike, I have my magic. You, dearest brother, do not."

The corner of Jarvan's mouth lifts. There was some truth in  _their_  House name, unlike others in Demacia. Spiritmights were well-known for their magical prowess and exceptional blood—many of their family had gone into the College of Magic, and had returned to the school at the end of their conscription to teach the next generation how to properly harness their gifts.

Lord Spiritmight was his family's reputation distilled into the form of a man—magically talented and outstandingly honorable. If the King went on with his concerns, he would be insulting his wife's brother, and  _that_  was something he did not wish for.

"That is true; I shall withdraw from the field then, and keep my distance." The King proposed, tactfully stepping down and granting Spiritmight his pride.

"Take my lads with you," Lord Spiritmight offered back—the gift of the Blues of Cresson was not lost on the King. His wife and the Duke of Endurn's sister, Catherine, was not a woman to cross.  _If_  the King had incurred some sort of accident, she would hang her own brother.  _After_  kicking at the King's cold and bloodied corpse, of course.

The King made an amused noise in his throat. "If it pleases you, brother, I will accept." All of this was pure ceremony, of course; putting up resistance whilst appearing to be gracious in defeat was considered as a talent given the fluidity and craftiness of Demacian politics.

"I would not presume to direct  _you_ ," Spiritmight returned politely, as expected. "But we must keep you safe. You  _are_  our King."

The King nods, and their little game ends. He looks down at the map and thinks of all the men he would lose tomorrow. In the future he would curse himself for following the Spymaster's advice, but this was the present and he feels that the Dauntless Vanguard would be enough to protect his only son.

There are many ways for plans to go wrong, and one of them involved the personality of the person being protected. Jarvan IV was not the cautious sort, and having been raised to be the next King of Demacia, he was not particularly inclined to care for how much trouble other people went to secure his life.

This sort of bad behavior would not be corrected until he would be inches away from Urgot's guillotine hand, but that moment would not come until later. For now, Jarvan IV was the King's heir, and as the King's heir he would be loved and hated at the same time for being what he was and for not considering what he meant for others.

"What time is it?" The King asked, and all the men in the room reached into their pockets to check the hour. This was mostly a formal effort; no one but the Duke of Endurn and the Captain-General could speak out of turn, after all, so all of them were forced to wait until Lord Spiritmight had brought his watch out to say the time—it was close to six o'clock.

"Well, we have made our plans as best as they can be made," The King said once the Duke had put away his pocket watch. "The Dauntless Vanguard will march north to La Forbie to bolster Task Force Justice there, while the Duke's Own will go with me to the south. Task Forces Lucent, Majesty, Amity and Honor are to hold their current positions as best as they are able. You are all thinking men; I trust all of you to enact strategies appropriate to your present circumstances, and to send word if you require aid. We cannot give ground tomorrow and yet we cannot advance either; do not let fervor affect your judgment, and know that these orders are unquestionable. Do what must be done, and do not hesitate. Light be with you all."

The officers salute in the usual style—fingers extended and placed parallel to the side of their brows or caps and hiding their thumb—before they leave. Only the Duke of Endurn stays with the King. A glint of magic about the Duke's hands pressed against the eroded walls and muted their words to the rest of the world.

"Tomorrow will be trying," The Duke broached to his brother-in-law. "Do you trust me—not as your Spymaster, but as your  _brother_?"

"Why are you asking me this? I am  _supposed_  to trust you." The King replies uncertainly, all formality dropped as the world was muted. "If you do not think that is sufficient, you have not wronged us thus far and I hold to the hope that you will continue to do what is best for us all."

The Duke stiffens slightly. He did not like being trusted on principle or by law. He preferred being trusted for what he  _was_ , but this was Demacia and here, people were trusted because they had a good name, not because they were good people.

There is something that is lost when one becomes Spymaster, and that something is called a  _conscience_. Good people have consciences. The very best spymasters did not. The Duke of Endurn no longer thought himself to be ' _good people'_ , not after what he had done and what he was about to do.

"Jarvan," He says, and the use of his name without his title makes the King tilt his head in mild surprise. "Something  _will_  happen tomorrow and it will not be pleasant. You  _must_  trust in me. You  _must_  know that I have a plan, and that I only seek the best for us all."

Jarvan the Third chuckles. It is no lie between them that he preferred the days when his brother-in-law was not so serious, but only Spymasters chose who their successors would be. The Duke of Endurn did not ask for his newest post and the King of Demacia did not want to make his brother-in-law feel unwelcome in it. "So many plans within plans… and  _all_  of them  _for_  Demacia?"

Maximilian Spiritmight smiles slightly in reply. He does not say anything. The look in his eye—that of a man who was given a painful duty in life—is enough.

"You need not ask again. I trust you." The King pulls on the mantle of authority and strengthens his voice as he places his hand on the Duke's shoulder.

"I  _do_  hope you remember that tomorrow." The Spymaster replies, voice tinged with misery as the King's hand falls.

The magic fades from the walls. They rejoin the world again, as King of Demacia and as Duke of Endurn, but the liege's eyes are uncertain of what he had just heard, and the vassal's eyes are unhappy with what the future would bring.

Garen Crownguard watches the generals leave and makes no noise, wanting to be obedient. On the other hand, Marcus Crownguard privately wonders why Lord Spiritmight leaves last. He does not say anything. He does not even look at the Duke, but he  _suspects_.

The Duke of Endurn looks to him, almost as if the Spiritmight could read his thoughts. Knowing what magic can do, however, perhaps the man  _could_. The older Crownguard stands up straighter when the Duke walks to him, and keeps his stare over the man's shoulder instead of his eyes.

"Vice Marshal Crownguard, the Dauntless Vanguard will be with the young prince on the morrow," The Spiritmight somehow manages to make him meet his gaze, and all Marcus Crownguard can do is stare back and hope that his eyes do not broadcast his own thoughts. "Do be careful with the King's heir. T'wouldn't do to lose him."

"I will, my Lord." The older Crownguard salutes him. Spiritmight stays for a minute—perhaps debating with himself if he should say anything more—before he gives a satisfied nod and walks away.

The Demacian camp is neat beyond the farmhouse, all pitched tents and orderly picket lines. Camp fires were few and far between because of the black powder's proximity, but the flames that the soldiers were allowed to keep were large and communal, illuminating smiling faces and shining eyes against the coming night.

Unlike the Noxian encampment, the soldiers all knew they were the winning horse. They had been given victory after victory thanks to the Spymaster's machinations. Many were dancing or playing improvised instruments. Most were talking of their families, or what sort of scandal afflicted the Demacian capital at the moment. Some even allowed themselves the pleasure of discussing what they would do after the final war, and how the supposed be-all-end-all League would affect their lives.

It was almost funny, because the Institute of War was not  _their_  concern and  _they_  were not important enough to be a part of it, but anyone with half a brain could tell that this League of Legends was going to become a Very Important Thing™ in the future, and they understood enough that they would be affected by it even if they did not have much of a say in it.

 _'_ _To prevent the use of magicks that would decimate them all, and to ensure that future wars do not occur through the use of proxies in an objective battleground'_ —there were more phrases to the mandate and more still in the various reservations that had been discussed between the participating city-states, but the average man did not care for more than  _that_. All  _they_  wanted was peace and the pleasure of being able to run through a field of flowers without being consumed by the undead.

Sometimes Lord Spiritmight envied their simple lives—but only  _sometimes_. He had a great number of honors tucked in his belt even without his sister's wedding to plump him up some. One could say he was nothing but an arrogant, manipulative and greedy man— but no one could say that he did not have a hand in the creation of this new League.

Lord Spiritmight had been the Demacian representative back then, so he knew exactly how  _hard_  it was to bring everyone to an agreement over the course of five years—and the negotiations  _alone_  took five years to do. Having everyone sign and ratify their own end of the Institute Accord was still an on-going effort despite the war.

Draythe, the incorrigible and unapologetic Noxian representative, was not an easy man to converse with—it was only when Marcus du Couteau replaced him that they could have any headway at all. Bilgewater's representative kept changing because their politics were not very stable—the only person he could truly remember was a man named David Fortune.

The Zaunite representative, Magnus Dunderson, would tell them all that they had to focus on economics and the ' _particular freedoms that scientists require to achieve progres_ s'. Of course the Piltovian representative, Howard Huxley, would object, crying foul at ' _human experimentation'_  and wanting ' _scientific and environmental responsibility'_.

At that point, everyone would throw a great fuss and then eventually they would all be gently prodded by Ionia's ambassador, Elder Kang, to return to the matter at hand, which was saving the world. For such is the fate of the 'greater good'. That is, it is often forgotten in favor of closer, more mortal and achievable goals, like a good fiscal year or making sure that a lab in Zaun would not get sued by a Piltovian harbormaster.

The Ionians had no desire to be part of the new League, but they had still sent a representative because they wanted all wars to end. Ironically, they would later become the new target purely  _because_  they held no interest in becoming part of this League. It was a pity, because if it had not been for Elder Kang, none of them would be able to come to any agreement.

Eventually everything was said and done. Names were signed and promises were made, but because of the nature of treaties and how long city-states could drag in their heels in the application of the Accord's stipulations it was hardly surprising that, eight years after saying ' _yes, we agree to have peace_ ' they were still fighting and trying to determine who would win the very  _last_  war and who would be held accountable for a great number of ills, much like children bickering about who wet the bed. That is—not  _me_  but  _them_.

This was a massive, pointless war and those who knew more of the Institute Accord than just ' _world peace'_  were simply waiting for a side to bend over. Fortunately, Lord Spiritmight had a very good idea of  _who_  would win and  _when_  they would win. It was not just the fact that he was a spider in the middle of a web made from informants and whispered truths. It was the fact he was working with  _another_  spider to move things according to how they felt everything  _should_  move.

Any reasonable Demacian would cry foul. They would say he was consorting with the enemy, that he was playing with an endless number of lives for his own advancement. They would not be far off from the mark. Lord Spiritmight had called himself a traitor and worse in his most private thoughts—but ultimately he reasoned with himself that he was doing what  _he_  felt was  _best_. He was ending the Fifth Rune War, and he was doing it in such a way that no one could say ' _Demacia should have done better_ '. He was also doing a very good job of maintaining his House's prestige.

Quite a distance away, most of the Noxian army gathers for what many consider to be their last night as  _people_ , because tomorrow they turn into numbers and letters on a ledger as they throw themselves at an unyielding wall because a few men said they  _should_. It is no secret in the army that a great many soldiers were unimportant and worth only for throwing away.

The aforementioned people were welcome to complain and to be violent in their protestations, but as with all things Noxian they would eventually be met with an equally violent and decisive refusal by those in power, unless someone in the advantage made sure that their complaints were acknowledged.

Some men were of the nature to dive into cups, going into their doom insensate and deadened to pain. Others played with gold and incurred a significant amount of debt never to be repaid. The thought was this:  _why should they care for the future at all, if their present would ensure their demise_?

Darius was  _almost_  of the mind, if he did not have a brother to look after he would be throwing dice and drinking himself. But the lieutenant  _did_  have a brother, and because of his childhood he was the doubting sort. He did not want to risk himself or his assets just because the world was apparently going to end the next day. He had no desire to upset his potential future because his present was being unpleasant.

So he was not with the rest of the officers when they passed around the flagon of spiced wine and dealt with cards and dice. He was not with the rest of the men when the quartermaster gave out cups full of brandy—an uncommon generosity from General de Montolieu—to help them achieve their goal to get hung-over in the morning so that when the Demacians stabbed them like pincushions they would not care at all.

He was sitting in his little hole and polishing his equipment in the very literal sense, and he had taken a swig of the brandy anyway because it was not watered down and it was from a good year. With that warmth settling into his belly and into his hands and feet, he went about his preparations with the speed of a sated sloth. He allowed himself that much—to go about his chores with his normal speed would mean that he would run out of things to do very soon.

He did not want to die. Like all men who felt that they still needed to stay on the surface of Runeterra for various reasons, he was not at all happy with his orders to ' _go and impale yourself on a shield wall, thank-you-very-much',_ but there was nothing to be done about it.

It would be very easy to desert, to get up and leave the army. All he had to do was walk away. The sentries were already drunk and no one was going to care if he did not show up to give orders the next day. In fact, his men would like it if  _that_  happened, because then they could desert themselves without anyone taking their names down on a ledger.

But Darius was a boy raised to  _like_  obligation and to feel guilt if he did not actually like it. He needed obligation much like a snail needed a shell. If he did not have any duty towards anyone or anything he would feel lost and would drift to madness. Freedom was not a pleasant concept for people like him. To be given choice was like jumping in the sea without anything to buoy him up.

But even self-imposed chains are not forever, and one day he would come to  _like_  having a choice. He would come to  _like_  choosing  _for_  himself instead of fulfilling an obligation towards something or someone. He would one day make the decision to place  _his_  wants over  _other_  people's needs, and for a time it would make him happy to simply be  _Darius_  instead of  _Commander, Draven's Keeper_ or  _Baton of Boram's Point._  But that would not happen until much later.

Slave to his obligations as he was, Darius was resolute in staying in his sleeping hole and to prepare  _properly_  for his doom. Unlike his brother, Draven was not content to go quietly. And so it was around eight in the evening when activity in the Noxian camp had reached the very bottom that a gendarme from the Dead Dogs made his way to the side of Darius' grave.

Contrary to popular belief, Noxians  _were_  capable of disciplining themselves, though the subjects of summary military justice were, more often than not, those who could not actually  _afford_  to  _avoid_  the rule of law.

Gendarmes were the quintessential policeman within the Noxian military. Organized in Disciplinary Battalions—one in each Corps— they held the power to imprison or to jail someone until it was time for the customary tribunal, but were never allowed to convict or inflict a punishment upon their charges.

Those latter rights belonged to the criminal's immediate superiors—the company commanders and those above them. Many gendarmes were corrupt and mostly served as enforcers for the officers they were assigned to, threatening imprisonment or worse in the right amounts. If an officer hated someone enough, they could pay a Gendarme-Commander to imprison the man or woman indefinitely—and such things  _did_  happen. This was Noxus after all.

Finding a gendarme who was well-versed in Noxian law  _and_  keen on upholding it was almost like finding an untainted unicorn in Noxus' Underground—that is to say improbable  _but_  imaginable—much like hoping for something good to happen.

The man shook Darius on the shoulder, and had to narrowly avoid the right hook that would have caved his cheek in. The Wolfman's son was not in the best of moods, and besides his trauma was still fresh in his mind.

"What do you want?" Darius' tone was an irritable snap at first, until he realized that the man was a gendarme from the hastily painted badge he had put on his breastplate.

"Oughta jail you." The gendarme replied with some measure of spite. "But you're not the person I'm after—it's your brother."

"What has he done now?" Darius pushed himself up in his grave.

"I'm with the Havercakes." The man replied, and he did not wait for Darius to laugh at the nickname of his company. "Captain Dufour has orders to receive him, but your brother isn't cooperating. This is, of course, your only warning."

Darius knew about the Havercakes—who  _didn't_ , with that sort of nickname? Every company had their own culture. Popular belief held that the provost marshal for  _that_  particular company had a habit of marching in front of his men with an oatcake stuck on the blade of his sword, and  _that_  was why the rest of them were doomed to carry a quaint and not-at-all frightening nickname as long as they were with the unit. It was said that they overcompensated for their silly name with their grisly behavior—that is, taking men's right ears as bounties.

If the non-commissioned conscripted were expected to do their job as expendable soldiers, the officers were expected to keep to a certain standard based on the varying military histories of their units—the more prestigious the name, the more it became a priority for the commissioned conscripted to upstage their rival units and to maintain such a reputation.

It was not a strange practice within certain corps to have officers rewarding their men additional coin for grisly trophies collected from the corpses of their victims, though that strategy tended to backfire in more enterprising units where a thousand men would literally stop in the battlefield to collect fingers or ears before moving on with the rest of their orders.

The Havercakes and the rest of the units that indulged this practice were seen as largely unskilled and as nothing but opportunistic and savage butchers by their fellow units—after all, how hard was it,  _really_ , to march into a Demacian village and cut off all the villagers' ears for  _money_?

There were  _some_  units—like the Black Watch— whose officers kept  _some_  semblance of culture and warrior's dignity. These units almost always had an aristocratic commander at some point in their long pedigree and would often say that they had 'more civilized' men in charge. Commissioned officers in those units were expected to uphold certain traditions, to keep a good table and to treat their men with courtesy and respect as was due to them.

However, the common rib at these units was that there was no profit to be had, and that obtaining a commission was largely a 'dancing affair', which is to say that in order to obtain captaincy, one had to dance in ballrooms with other aristocrats—manipulating one's way into the unit was largely preferred instead of fighting to merit a position within the supposedly glorious ranks.

Darius had no desire to be known as dancing captain. He only knew  _one_  dance, and besides he had no desire to take things he did not feel he deserved. He did not want to be the Black Watch's captain, but de Roquefort obviously felt him to be a sort of threat.

In Darius' firm opinion, no provost marshal had looked pleased that day, and given Korovino's reputation, no one in their right mind would take him. Draven was too much of a showman and not enough of a soldier. His brother was belligerent, self-indulgent and filled with delusions of grandeur—hardly the best kind of man to put on a battlefield. Knowing the Havercakes wanted Draven only made sense. Of course, they would want him—he was from Korovino. Birds of the same feather flocked together, and his fellow butchers wanted his company.

"When does he  _ever_  cooperate?" came Darius' wry response. "I am not sure what you want from  _me_ ; he does not listen to me either."

The gendarme gave him a very patient stare, as if the real meaning behind his message would penetrate Darius' skull telepathically. In the face of the gendarme's silence, Darius resisted the urge to massage his temples. Even after resting for a while his head still hurt and his eyes still wanted to close of their own volition. He was not hungry anymore at least.

"… No one else is willing to talk to him, I assume?" Darius asked, and at the gendarme's nod he grudgingly pushes himself up and rises from his grave. Old men say there is no rest for the wicked, but the Wolfman's son did not think himself to be wicked enough to deserve  _this_.

He follows the gendarme through the dismal camp, past men drunkenly calling for camp followers and men who looked to have seen better days. They were all bone-tired; afflicted with the sort of exhaustion that hinted at death as being the next stage of existence. One day of rest would have done them all good, but the generals had decided their deaths for them.

They arrived at a tent that had been patched one too many times—the white cross that hinted its nature as an infirmary was painted on with diluted paint that gave it a faded and droopy sort of look. The ground around it was stained dark.

The little thing was full to capacity— there was hardly any space for him and the gendarme to walk, so the man had deigned to stay by the tent flap and to watch Darius carefully navigate the living bed of men and women who stank of blood and looked ready to die. The numerous losses of the 2nd and 5th Legions meant that those who would not survive the night would be culled. Every now and then two Noxian medics would come in—one of them had a knife— and then they would depart with a body wrapped in cloth.

Draven did not have a luxury of a cot, or even space to put his good leg. His injured leg was allowed to lie straight, but because the tent was filled with the wounded his working limb was folded up. Darius eyed him with pity for a moment, but all that vanished in favor of cold rage when Draven saw him and then made a disgusted noise in his throat.

"… Here to fucking laugh at me?" The younger man gritted out.

"I am here to  _collect_  you," Darius replied with an instinctive sneer. "On behalf of Captain Dufour of Endeavor Company, who is willing to take you as one of his conscripts. Why have you not asked a healer to see to your limb?"

"After  _you_  fucked up my chances with the provost marshals—" Draven interjected bitterly, crossing his arms over his chest like a child.

"I did  **not**." Darius replied, voice drifting into a dangerous low. " _You_  had lost them before  _I_  lost you the match."

Draven glared at him. If looks were capable of setting men on fire—and in the case of Vel'koz that was  _entirely_  possible—he would have. But Draven was no creature from the Void capable of eyeballing people into ashes, so he settled for grumbling under his breath and looking away from the man who, in his mind, had gone out of his way to ruin him.

Of course, Darius had not meant such a thing. The bitter point of all this was that the failed match was still a fresh injury to Draven because he had wanted to be chosen so much, but his hurt did not matter at all to Darius, who felt himself in the right to have called his brother's attention, who did not consider what his little brother wanted  _for_  himself. Both of them were very wrong, but both of them were from the same stock—proud, unwilling to waver, to admit they were wrong. So they stayed in silence for a while, until the gendarme poked his head in and made a very loud and impatient cough.

"… I will pay for the healer, if you cannot afford one." Darius offered. He did not think Draven would accept, but the younger man grudgingly nodded his head.

"…  _You_  fucking did it, so  _you_  fucking pay for it." Draven muttered.

Darius stiffens. He does not like to be reminded of  _that_ — he had lost control that time. He had not seen his brother as he  _should_  have. He had seen no one but a tormentor—but he could not tell his brother  _this_ , because he did not want Draven to  _not_   _believe_ in him. The younger man could hate him, but he could  _never_  see him weak and afraid. Big brothers were  _never_  afraid,  _never_  cowardly  _or_  murderous, but that last point was something else entirely. He felt very sorry now, but he did not know how to apologize at all. His parents had never raised him to be repentant. They had taught him to own up to his mistakes, not to speak words of comfort or condolence.

"… I will." Darius replies. His apology, in a way. "And I will talk to Captain Dufour."

"What the fuck now?" Draven leers at him.

"You have very  _special_  needs, I should think." Darius responds dryly. "I will make the proper number of inquiries."

He tries not to think of what the next day held for him as he gives the offer. He could die in the battlefield tomorrow, and who would care for Draven then? Arrangements  _had_  to be made, even if he did not know anything of Captain Dufour.

Draven laughs—bitterly and mockingly. "Just fucking pay a provost marshal to mark my conscription as finished. Would do better than magic."

" _That_ , I will  **never**  do." Darius rumbles. His brother was treading in dangerous territory. "Our father served, as did our mother. The least you could do is to finish your years, as they did."

Draven does not reply. It bites at him that he had forced his brother into silence, but it  _had_  to be said. He would gladly pay  _for_  Draven's life, but he would not make it  _easier_  for him. Whatever it was his little brother wanted to be—it had to be  _earned_.

"I will have a healer brought to you." He states again. Perhaps Draven hadn't believed him the first time. "The gendarme outside will collect you and take you to your new company. Do behave."

Draven spits at him. The glob of saliva misses by an inch. He feels too tired to explain himself further. If his brother wished to hate him for doing what he felt was best, then Draven was welcome to wallow in his anger. He had a battle to fight tomorrow, and he needed all the sleep he could get. Feeling sorry about how he had treated Draven was not particularly high in Darius' list of priorities at the moment—not only did he have de Croix to contend with, he had de Roquefort and his impeding death to consider. He had no energy left in him to worry if Draven was going to slit his throat.

Darius fulfills his part of the one-sided agreement and finds a healer. He tries to stay, but when he hears the bones of Draven's knee reset he loses his nerve. Spiteful red lights and taunting white warmth flickering in his eyes, he tells the gendarme to collect his brother and leaves.

The Havercakes were camped not far from the tent, and he finds Captain Dufour easily. Endeavor was composed of light infantry, and their captain exemplified his men. He was a dirty blonde with a slight build, possessing a ruddy face and dark blue eyes. His hands were long and tapered, and he spent most of his time as they talked with his palm placed on his dagger's hilt. Obviously, a man who knew which was the business end of the knife.

"I will not mince words," Darius says plainly, the moment Captain Dufour receives him. "I need you to watch over him. I want him to stay alive. Whatever luxuries he asks for, I will pay. You need only send me the bill."

Dufour smiles. The man's eyes do not reflect the same sentiment his face shows. Here was a man who would kill his own mother if he had to, and he would have  _liked_  it. It almost frightens him, this company, but as he had gone through far worse, Darius does not show his fear.

"I'll take care of 'im for you, Baton." The cutthroat replies easily. He does not say anything else.

Of course, Darius would probably wind up paying more than he  _ought_  to, but this was  _Draven_ , and he could not spare any expense. Having achieved some sort of understanding, Darius bids him a goodnight and leaves.

Though Darius tries to ignore it, the popping noise of bones snapping back into place prickled at the back of his head like a sound echoing through a cave as he walks back to his grave. Preoccupied with his thoughts, he didn't know where his feet took him until after he had almost fallen into someone's grave himself.

He caught himself just in time, grabbing onto the nearby spike barrier and nearly chafing his hand raw. The occupant—or rather,  _occupants_ —of the grave stared at him with wide eyes. Judging from their sizes, these were children, and with protective arms curled about them all was a thin-faced boy with hazel eyes in clothes too big for him.

Feeling every inch the stranger he was, Darius pushes himself out, even if it hurt to lean on the spike barrier to do so. He looks down at his hand—no real injury here, nothing that would hamper him in the field considerably—before he looks at the grave he had nearly fallen into. This was none of his business, but it piqued his interest. Why so many children, and why  _here_  of all places?

"… Do they," He struggles to find the words. "… Where are…  _Are_  they—"

"Not mine but no one cares for the young'uns." The boy says, voice oddly high pitched. Perhaps he wasn't old enough yet.

"No one?" Darius echoes in bemusement, though he knew this truth himself. "Surely—"

The boy shakes his head, and the children near him cling tighter to his clothes.

"This is the  _front line_." Darius can't help but say. He hopes the words would mean  _something_. Given the boy's harried tone it was a familiar argument.

"Is the only place I could take 'em," The boy scratches the back of his head agitatedly. A few locks tumble out from under his cap, strangely silver in the nearby torchlight. "No one else wants to keep 'em."

Scraps' death nips at his conscience—he had spared that child a death  _here_ , only to send him dying  _elsewhere_. Should he even take these children then, if there was already blood on his hands? Where would he even take them? How could he be so sure that they would be safe, if he did try? He couldn't go out of his way to save everyone—nor  _should_  he.

The strong survived. The weak were left behind. That was the adage carved across his throat. He knew he would not be held accountable if he left them to their own devices, to let them  _die_  because they were clearly weak— but these were  _children_ , not even men. He could not expect the same understanding, could not even think of imposing the same standards. They  _deserved_  more than this,  _better_  than this.

"Are they… are you  _all_  with the army?" He breathes out. "If they are not conscripted they could go elsewhere… in the back lines, perhaps?"

"My company's here." The boy replies hesitantly. "And… I don't wanna let these lil' scrappers outta my sight. They get into trouble without me. They needs a keeper."

"The battlefield is no place for children." Darius tries to reason, but the lad doesn't look to hear him. "Tomorrow, especially."

"Don't tell the captain." The boy pleads instead. "I'll have 'em out of the way tomorrow, I promise. Just… I wanna keep them warm and out of trouble tonight. No one needs to be bothered…"

Darius would have left then, if it wasn't for the gnawing rumble that reached his ear. The lad stiffens for a moment, and then lowers his gaze.

"… You gave them your dinner, didn't you?" Darius says it only because he feels the need to. He knew how it felt to give someone else his food, if only to keep that person sated and warm—never mind that the object of his sacrifice currently hated him.

"… They're not soldiers," The lad mumbled around his collar. "So the cooks don't give the squeakers any. No parents either. No one feeds 'em but me."

Maybe it was because he honestly thought he was going to die tomorrow, or because he understood the duress that one went through in order to take care of younger children. Perhaps Scraps' death had affected him more than he thought it would, or Draven's hatred had made him feel as if he had to make it up somewhere,  _somehow_. Whatever it was, he felt unusually generous that night.

At the nearest officer's mess tent he asked if the children could be fed. He was told  _he_  could eat without paying, but as the children were not officers they had to be paid  _for_. Naturally, Darius gave the gold and let the six thin children eat as much as they wanted, but because  _they_  were not welcome in the officer's mess, all of them were forced to eat outside and behind the tent, where the butcher was currently beheading chickens and shoving dismembered poultry into a nearby pot for tomorrow's breakfast. Every now and then they would get flecked with blood, and then the grizzled butcher would make an apologetic-sounding grunt in their direction.

They were a strange sight—five ravenous children, one lad buried in clothes and one ruffled lieutenant sitting at a rickety table and eating with mismatched cutlery. The children were emitting all the joy and noises associated with beings who suffered from starvation having at last been granted a reprieve. Darius was content to sit quietly in their company.

Even with Darius paying out of his pocket, the boy did not eat as much, preferring instead to place more food into his charges' plates. Darius found himself maneuvering plates in front of the boy out of habit. He would have been content with staying quiet—he had never been much of a conversationalist after all—but the lad was keen on talking.

"You're the Baton, aren't you?" The boy pipes up the moment Darius sits down across from him.

"Does it matter?" Darius replies none-too-kindly. Color rises to the boy's cheeks.

"It's just…" He babbles. "I wasn't sure if it was  _true_. A commoner becoming Baton… you don't hear that sort of thing every day."

After having everyone judge him purely because he was  _not_  the average Baton, it was mildly refreshing to find someone who  _doubted_  his achievement. He chuckles, and the lad takes that to be a sign that he was not particularly insulted.

"Then you  _are_  Baton." The boy quips, excitement palpable in his strange voice.

"I don't see how  _any_  of that matters." Darius replies as he casts a weary eye at the boy. "I am a lieutenant now, like any other."

"But you're one of  _us_ ," The boy smiles at him. "That sorta news gives the rest of us hope."

" _I_  give hope," Darius repeats dryly, with all the exhaustion and melancholy expected from someone who had very little of it. " _Really_?"

"That we can  _be_." The lad beams at him. "That we  _can_  do things and that  _they'll_  see we're worth it."

Of all the things Darius had thought he would become, he hadn't expected to become a sort of  _ideal_ —a man that people  _aspired_  to be. He feels uncomfortable in the lad's gaze, and thinks of how he had not been good  _enough_. He does not know what to say to this surprisingly positive boy. He feels himself too jaded to agree completely, but at the same time he did not have it in him to crush their hopes and dreams. His parents had never told him what he could  _not_  be, after all. Ultimately, he settles on ignoring the words.

"Work hard, and you'll get where you need to go." The lieutenant grumbles as he shoves a plate filled to the brim with mashed potatoes in the lad's general direction. "But first, you need to finish your food."

As expected, the lad pushes the dish towards his charges. "Only after the squeakers finish." The strange boy says kindly, and Darius thinks he has found a metaphorical unicorn. It privately amuses him, how he seemed to have drifted in company from the dregs of humanity to the foam at the top— all on the same day. Perhaps this sort of revelatory thing naturally occurs before one's death.

The rest of the meal is spent in relative silence. At last the children stop and start to yawn, and Darius rises to excuse himself. It was the twentieth hour, if the number of bells he had heard in the distance were to be believed. He had roughly four hours left to rest before High Command sent them all to die. He had wasted a lot of time here and he kicks himself mentally for his kindness.

"Thank you again," The boy tells him, bowing low and respectful. It is the first time anyone had ever thought to show him respect  _without_  having an ulterior motive. Naturally, the jaded lieutenant finds the gesture uncomfortable.

"I would be careful tomorrow," He says in lieu of saying 'take care'. It seems to him a pair of soft words. This was Noxus and no one used those words without wanting something back. He did not want anything from this lad.

"I will," The boy gives a nod. "Try not to die tomorrow." He closes with a grin. "We still need a symbol."

A symbol—for what, he wonders darkly as he walks away. He was hardly the happiest man alive, or even the most hopeful one.

It is not until Darius goes back to his grave that he realizes he did not ask for the boy's name. Ultimately, it didn't matter because they were all going to die tomorrow. Over the course of the day he had accepted that. Now all he wanted was to die as a warrior his father would have been proud of.

Anyone with a sense of history would know that Darius, the Hand of Noxus, would  _not_  die at the Battle of La Forbie, but the young man of the present did not have the luxury of foresight. All he had was hindsight, and as anyone will say—it was both a beautiful and a terrible thing to have.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**  I KNOW I AM WAY OVERDUE. But as you can see, I am still working on this even after a lore reboot.

I  _had_  stopped, because apparently cannons did not canonically exist in those days (pun unintended), but since Rito basically cleaned their table I have allowed myself the freedom to also be grossly un-canon. There are a lot of things going on in this chapter, most of it is foreshadowing and a (probably) subtle reference to both Marcus du Couteau  _and_  Riven. I will leave it to you to see where and how.

I have a timeline all plotted out, and that is what I'll be using here in lieu of the new lore. I'm still ? about everything, because Darius, Swain, Riven et al. have not yet been rewritten, but anyway. It goes without saying this fanfiction is now an AU. Or rather, as AU as one can get. I hope you enjoy the chapter. Been a long time.


	23. Pride Goeth

_You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe_

_That you have something impossible up your sleeve,_

_The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,_

_An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,_

_The will to do whatever must be done:_

_Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son._

**Fairy-tale Logic (A.E. Stallings)**

* * *

**TWO DAYS LATER…**

A cry ripples through the ranks— _ballista_ —before a great arrow slams through five of his men and pegs them all to a nearby tree. Darius had barely managed to throw himself out of the way. Now he curses his weight. The mud clings to his armor and worms its way through protective leather and padding.

The particles itch, but stopping to scratch at his shirt and pants is the last thing he wishes to do at the moment. His hand is still holding onto his axe as he half-scrambles, half-pulls himself along and into a nearby protective ditch.

The rain is hard and unforgiving, pelting like glass marbles and making everything hard to see. The water tastes like metal and sticks to his tongue and throat. Strangely, everything has a green cast to it. He thinks he is ill, or worse—but there is nothing to do about it.

The breath flies out of his lungs the moment he lands—muck flies in every direction, the small of his back smashes angrily against one of many planks of wood used to keep the floor of the trench stable.

Hands pull him up, and he spits out a clod of dirt that had managed to infiltrate his mouth. He raises a hand in silent thanks and pushes his hair out of his face.

The defenders of justice had entrenched themselves so deeply that nothing short of artillery had been able to make them give an  _inch_. Two days' worth of sieging and skirmishing in the fields outside of the town had done very little to push the Demacians out of their position. It was not until something had exploded in the distance at the fifth hour of the second day—sending up a great orange and black cloud— that the word had then come down from on high. de Montolieu had ordered his Legion to charge.

The General hadn't bothered to say anything else since then—if he had issued orders to the 2nd Legion after the advance, the Black Watch had yet to hear of it. Given no further orders and stuck in the middle of a kill zone, the Black Watch had to make do.

They had been making do for eight hours now and everyone was close to falling over. These trenches they were in had actually been part of the Demacian exterior defense line. For the moment, the Noxians were making use of it. If their circumstances did not improve, it would also become their grave.

"Five gone; how many of us are left?" He asks the nearest man—it is Sowards. He was one of Darius' older conscripts; a fishmonger with a saturnine temper who had incurred a significant amount of debt in a number of animal fighting rings. When given the choice between rotting in a cell and selling himself to the army, he had taken the latter option.

"Averill an' some o' the boys're thataway—" He points behind him with a crooked thumb. "Damed got the rest o'er." He shifts his hand and gestures across Darius' shoulder. The lieutenant forces himself to stand up and, bent slightly so that his head would not be seen over the ditch's walls, counts his men. Twenty-six conscripts, down from fifty-five.

Thunder booms overhead as de Roquefort follows him to the ditch. His captain takes a minute to look at him and the rest of the unlucky men before he speaks.

"Perhaps you should've trained your men to evade a ballista bolt better?" de Roquefort asks him dryly as he sheathes his bloodied saber. He pulls a communication shard out of his jacket pocket and peers at it—the surface is dark and from the way his brow furrows it is silent.

Still nothing from High Command. Darius didn't want to think that they had just left the entire 2nd Legion to die. Instead he curses his captain as he tries to blink through mud and rain. He makes no attempt to reply as he pulls his glove off and uses his clean hand to wipe at his eyes.

There is some noise to his right. Darius peers over the trench wall. A regiment of Demacians are marching towards them, with that damnable ballista behind their ranks. He thinks it is time for him to die, but lightning arcs down and strikes them all, unnaturally flowing in a straight line. The struck Demacians do not scream; they simply fall, smoking and smelling like burning meat. Those that survive freeze and turn tail like hares.

There is a bizarre quality to the air; it is thick and heavy, as if it was made of something else instead of gas. A metallic stench clings to his nose and makes him choke back his own spit.

de Roquefort laughs. Darius wonders if he has gone  _mad_.

"Oh, they have certainly taken their time. Do you smell that?" de Roquefort asks him, having seen the look on his face as he had side-eyed his commander. Darius thinks of the burning men, but his captain looks to have read his mind.

"No, not  _those_." de Roquefort clarifies with a snort. "It's magic," de Roquefort remarks with a ready sneer at Darius' inexperience. "What makes it better is that it's  _our_  magic."

" _Our_  magic?" He repeats dumbly, and his captain holds out his glove, lets the green glow overhead highlight the beads of water on black leather. Darius looks up. The storm smashes against his face. He did not know much about magic, but he did know what color the sky  _should_  be, and how the clouds  _should_  move.

There is a green and eerie glow behind the clouds, and these shift and spin overhead like an angry vortex. He had been wondering, in the back of his simple mind, why the rainwater had tasted queer, why the air seemed to be choking him and why everything looked wan and green. Now he knew.

" _Our_  magic." de Roquefort repeats. He closes his hand into a fist. Teeth bared, the strange green light reflects in his mouth and in his eyes.

A verdant flash illuminates them all for a brief moment before the telltale rolling whump and crack of thunder and lightning descends. Darius could hear the Demacians screaming— _ballista_ —before a loud crack sounds and metal and wooden parts fly over the ditch and pepper them all with shards and splinters.

The acrid, metallic stench penetrates his nostrils again and irritates his eyes. He struggles against the urge to vomit—there was nothing to expel anyway. His last meal had been a full five hours ago.

"It smells like that because of the nexus," de Roquefort informs him candidly. "It is your first, fighting with mages using a nexus, no?"

"If it is  _our_  magic, why is it affecting us too? And this storm wasn't discussed in the war council—" Darius manages around his nausea. He tried to remember if he had seen anything on the map table that day that looked like a nexus before he surrendered himself to his ignorance.

"This would not be the first time I have gone to battle without a complete picture. If it is not the Army pulling surprises out of their pockets, then it is the Navy—and those sea rats tend to keep their own counsel." de Roquefort's smile is twisted and sardonic. "It does not matter; this storm is ours. The strikes are not aimed at  _us_ , but we are  _all_  under this sky. You will build a tolerance too, in time."

He stands up and peers over the ditch's walls. Darius follows suit, and the sight that greets him is a sight he hadn't even allowed himself the hope of imagining—La Forbie is dark in the distance. The Demacians are retreating. A pit in the ground marks where the Demacian ballista used to be. Burning, twisted corpses litter the field.

"We have a valuable minute to breathe while the storm is on us; how many of us remain?" de Roquefort inquires, and Darius wonders if he intends to murder them all if the numbers were too many.

"Twenty-six," He answers hesitantly. "Five were taken by the ballista earlier; the rest are nearby. What do you intend?"

"We have an advantage with the storm and we have our orders. Where's your shard?" His captain asks. Darius reaches about and under his breastplate, feels the magical contraption tangled in leather straps. He pulls it out and stares at the communication shard. It was covered in blood. Not his, surely? He didn't feel hurt anywhere.

The rain washes the red off, and he lifts it so that his captain could see. The man reaches out and taps his against Darius' shard, and a blossom of light emerges from both.

"We are connected," de Roquefort states as he puts his shard away. He pushes himself out of the trench and spits his words over his shoulder. "Gather your men, lieutenant, and follow your orders as they had been given to you. Take the town, or die."

It made no sense at all to throw themselves at the retreating Demacians. It was true that the storm was a weapon, like any other thing, and for this storm to be of use, it had to be accompanied with soldiers—but they had all been wrung dry. No one else had any strength left in them to push forward. If they  _did_  throw themselves at La Forbie they would be slaughtering  _themselves_. If they  _did_  retreat under the cover of the maelstrom, they would be losing their advantage and perhaps even the war. If they survived all of this, they would be branded as cowards or worse.

It was a difficult decision to make. Darius did not want to be held accountable for the 2nd Legion's failure to punch through La Forbie—but he did not want to die either. He knew it was his duty to fulfill his orders, and that it was not a bad thing to face his death on the field—but he had done all he could here and throwing themselves at the town would amount to nothing but mass suicide. It would accomplish nothing given Noxus' already wavering numbers.

He was no stranger to throwing his men, but he did not want to be thrown in  _with_  them. In the precious minutes that followed, he had to think of a way to take the town,  _and_  to keep himself alive—with all that had happened in his life, retreating was not an option. It shamed his blood and his education.

The rain pours on. His men come without being called, standing about him in a rough semi-circle and staring at him with anxious and dog-tired faces.

"What do you plan to do, Baton?" Damed asks him. The man walked with a strange gait—swinging his left leg much like his father once did and making Darius wonder if he too wore a wooden limb— and had greying hair that showed brightly against his tanned skin. He also had a large and very grotesque scar on his face that pulled the right side of his face downwards.

Darius had asked him once, before they had been sent to die here, about the origin of the wound. Damed had only given him a twisted-looking grin, mentioning offhandedly that ice hooks were not to be used by children. It only made him curious as to what Damed had done before joining the army.

If they survived this, he'd ask again.

"Give me a moment," Darius rubs at his temples as he sits down in the muck. A few people take the time to vomit; evidently the disconcerting scent and taste of the storm was taking its toll. "In the meantime form a defensive line and try to eat."

"With this awful smell, it's worth a try—but you need to think quick." Damed comments as he leaves. The left side of his face lifts in a smile but the right remains low and stiff. "Before the Demacians take to the trench again."

"Yes, thank you for the reminder, Damed." Darius replies dryly. He would have kept his communication shard and found himself something to eat at this point, but the magical artifact glints and pulsates—a message? Was it General de Montolieu, or did Captain de Roquefort forget something?

"Lieutenant Darius; 3rd Platoon, Black Watch out of the 101st." He answers. His haggard voice betrays his circumstances.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Swain; 3rd Battalion, 1st Standard." The voice that reached him is calm and lacking any real emotion. "Lieutenant, is there some reason why I am speaking with  _you_  instead of the Black Watch's captain?"

Darius stiffens for a brief moment. He knew that House name. That was the House that had sponsored his entry to Boram's Point all those years ago. He had thought that House had been dissolved, and their name cast to the wind. What was this man doing, announcing himself in that fashion? "I do not know for certain, sir," He replies hesitantly. "Is Captain de Roquefort's shard unresponsive?"

"One would think that a Noxian deals in absolutes." Swain drawls back. "Have you been able to establish communications with Generals de Montolieu or du Couteau?"

"The Black Watch has not received orders from General de Montolieu in hours, sir. The last I saw or heard of General du Couteau was before the call to charge."

Swain laughs, which strikes Darius as an odd thing to do when faced with silence from High Command. "Then it is as I have thought; the Demacians have thrown a veil."

Darius felt horribly stupid again. "A veil?"

"Anti-magic shell," Swain's voice is not kind. He talks as if he was explaining something that anyone should know, and Darius feels mildly insulted by it. "It would most likely take on the form of an invisible curtain, standing vertically between the forward units and the headquarters battalions—not too thick, but enough to block communications."

"But the storm—" Darius tried to say, but Swain cut him off there and then.

"Is the storm in any danger of ceasing, lieutenant?" The thin insult could be felt across the link.  _Are you daft?_  "Nexus magic always drowns out everything else. The veil is for the shards alone."

Darius grits his teeth. He couldn't know everything, but why did everyone have to rub his ignorance in his face? "Have you been able to contact the rest of the Legions, sir, on this side of the veil?"

"With  _some_  measure of difficulty," Swain's comment, seemingly trying to draw upon some humor, emerges rather mirthless. "Most of the shards I have tried to communicate with are dark. Only yours and a few others are lit. Now, either most of the officers are dead and their shards had been destroyed as a precaution  _or_  their holders have deserted and have destroyed their shards to hide their cowardice. Pitiful, but not unexpected."

Not unexpected. He supposed he was fortunate that twenty-six of his company were still close by. "What do you intend to do, sir?"

"Why," Now some emotion colors Swain's voice, and the confident, predator's purr is painfully familiar to Darius, who had been tortured once before. "We take the town, and then we claim those shore batteries to let the 10th Fleet slip past. Do you have your grid coordinates on-hand, lieutenant?"

Darius stands up for a brief moment to dig the map out of the little satchel he kept on his waist. The laminate resists the rain, but it took a full minute for him to read it in the booming dark.

"Stand by for grid coordinates," He waits for the customary reply— _send your traffic_ — before he reads aloud. "One-One-Five-Eight-One-Three."

It takes some time for Swain to answer, and in the interim the lieutenant wipes the rain away from the surface of the laminated map—an eternal chore.

"The 3rd Battalion is at—standby for grid coordinates—One-One-Three-Eight-One-Nine; which would be north-northwest of your current position." Swain informs him primly. Darius looked at the grid square Swain's coordinates had indicated. The lieutenant-colonel was further up the field of battle, towards the Freljord, and was much closer to the town. There was ample cover in Swain's position to keep him out of sight and out of mind. If the man marched two miles north he could very well take the Demacian's  _Paixhans_  guns for Noxus.

"Kindly move your men three miles southwest by south. Standby for coordinates—One-One-One-Eight-Zero-Nine. Collect the rest of the scattered Legion on your way south and position yourself from where the village faces the bend of the Serpentine. Read again."

As the lieutenant-colonel gives him his orders, Darius traces his projected path on the map using a navigational protractor and his index finger. "I read again: three miles southwest by south to One-One-One-Eight-Zero-Nine. I will collect the men, but there is nothing but farmland in the place where we will go," He feels compelled to say. "If you intend to have me assault the town—"

"Do not be foolish—you will obtain nothing from assaulting the town." Swain snaps back. "You will be the feint; your proximity to the road will force them out. If there is one thing that Demacians cannot stand, it is a threat to their supply line. Once you have drawn the main force out of the town, use the trenches to your advantage. Funnel them as you return to your previous position. I will divide my force in two in order to take the artillery installation to the north and to capture the Prince of Demacia."

Darius blinks and stops himself just in time from asking how the man knew the Prince was in the region. He already felt very stupid talking to the lieutenant-colonel. Instead he takes a different tact. "You are  _certain_  the Prince would remain in the town? If the Demacians would take the feint, then shouldn't he be with them as they charged me?"

"Without a doubt," Swain says. Darius could feel the smile. "He is the jewel of the court. The Captain-General would not allow him the opportunity to fight."

If he understood the lieutenant-colonel's plan correctly, his force would act as a feint to draw out the Captain-General's forces. He searched his memories and dredged them up with difficulty. Yesterday's estimate for Task Force Shield had been at a hundred thousand men. He hadn't known the Prince was here, but the King was most certainly south, close to the Howling Marsh. If the King was the pampering sort, he would have split his forces to protect his heir apparent.

So, that left roughly fifty-thousand men, and perhaps even the mythical Dauntless Vanguard itself, though Darius knew they were sworn to the King and not the Prince; it would have been a tall number but he had fought the defenders of La Forbie already and he knew they had taken a beating also.

What bit at him was that he didn't know how much of the 2nd Legion was left. If the other companies had taken a whipping also, their added numbers would still be too few to pose as a threat. It disturbed him, how his battlefield awareness of their numbers was not  _that_  good. But then again, he was only a lieutenant. He wasn't privy to information that involved the entire 2nd Legion. All he could do was make an educated guess and make do once he had arrived.

There was also the storm to consider. The storm would hide them, would make it difficult for the Demacians to completely gauge their numbers. If the Captain-General were the paranoid sort, perhaps he would fall for the trap but after  _that_ —

He would have to peel back, but at the same time he had to keep the Demacian's attention on his meager force. By the time he retreated back here, Swain should have his men nearby to replenish their numbers. It seemed to be too much to ask—to march three miles and back and showing the Demacians their tails all the while. Besides he had very little left in him.

General Marcus du Couteau did not seem like a fool. Perhaps his 5th had not taken too many casualties. If the Dead Dogs were still fighting where they had last left them and if the Captain-General could be taunted and led—

"Sir," Darius ventures uncertainly. "Is it possible during the fighting retreat to lead the Captain-General into the 5th Legion instead of rendezvousing with you at these coordinates?"

"Indeed, you may." Given the man's tone, which was not at all surprised and sounded rather amused and expectant, it was almost as if the lieutenant-colonel had suggested the six mile march only to see if he had the brain to refuse.

Darius didn't like this Swain, but he seemed to know what he was doing. If he survived this, he'd respect the man despite his behavior. "Black Watch will comply," Darius replies grimly. What was left of it anyway.

If what Swain said was true, de Roquefort could have fallen off the grid to desert. In that case, Darius would take every pleasure in severing the man's head himself. He could have also gone back to where General de Montolieu had pitched his tent to ask for orders or reinforcements, but he did not think de Roquefort was that kind of a man.

"Damed," He raises his voice to let it carry over the storm. "Tell the men to form up. Single columns. We'll eat on the move. We're going south."

Across the battlefield, Jarvan IV watched the pockmarked and burnt fields from his window. Warm and dry in a spacious cottage the Valor Knights had appropriated for his use, he felt as if he was being slowly choked to death.

He would have been outside in the trenches with the rest of the men, but his father was too anxious for his welfare, and the Captain-General was too terrified of his liege lord to see the younger Jarvan as being anything else but a  _child_.

It was to be expected. Three years ago, there had been an assassination attempt on the young Prince. His mother the Queen had taken the poisoned bolt instead. Elaine Benoic had been buried and Catherine Spiritmight had been wedded too quickly for the young heir's liking.

Elaine had suckled her child on tales of knights who went a-questin for the  _Beast Glatisant_  or rescued damsels in distress. She had filled his head with southern notions of valor and sacrifice, of  _noblesse oblige_  and courtly love.

His new mother Catherine told him there were no such things as the  _Beast Glatisant_ , and that fairy tales and legends were not the provinces of young kings-to-be. In the wake of the Queen's assassination, he had been raised in an atmosphere of fear and anger that swallowed him up and spat him back out every bit as spiteful, had been given a litany of ancestral anecdotes alongside the Measured Tread— Noxians are  _never_  to be trusted, good  _always_  wins over evil and Demacia is  _filled_  with nothing but  _good_.

Over the years, Jarvan had convinced himself that he was also capable of the righteous hate of his ancestors, and his anger was only intensified by his southern blood.

Despite his name, he looked nothing like his father except in build and height. He took rather strongly after his mother, with startlingly bright blue eyes, handsome dark hair and olive skin. If one asked a particular faction in the Royal Court, Jarvan the younger was  _very_  southern. Having milder tempers and lesser affections towards anyone but their own, the northerners did not like their southern cousins— in their eyes, the men were grossly impulsive and keen on fighting, and the women were too headstrong and proud.

Where the ancestral rolling lowlands of Demacia met the sea and the steep peaks of the Great Barrier, southerner blood ran hotter. Whereas Noxus had developed from its infamous mountain and then radiated outwards, Demacia had crept up much like a climbing vine from the arid south towards the fertile north. The south was the birthplace of the most ancient and purest notion of honor, a place where dragons and unicorns still dwelled. It was where House Laurent held their family seat and where dueling to the death was still held as an acceptable solution to problems.

Most of the finest military families hailed from the south, or held some measure of southerner blood in their veins. In times of peace they were constantly but secretly ridiculed for their forwardness and lack of inclination to play the political game, but in times of war they were the first to volunteer and often were the first to die. It was a cruel and human thing.

Like the rest of his mother's kin, the Prince of the Realm preferred that his actions spoke for him. He had been given a classical Lightshield education but he had pushed and shoved through it all like a Benoic: graduating from the Demacian Royal Academy without any special commendations and training alongside the Dauntless Vanguard and the Valor Knights with the ferocity of a caged beast. And he  _was_  trapped, albeit in a prison of his father's making… not that he hadn't tried to escape before.

The Captain-General had not been pleased when he had heard Jarvan had escaped to fight with the rest of Task Force Shield—abandoning his special arms and armor in favor of a Kingsman's rudimentary equipment. He had given him the customary lecture— _you are a Prince of the Realm and you must stay where you will be safe_ —but the moment Ivar Purvis had turned his literal back on the sixteen year old was the moment he lost him. Repeatedly.

After fetching the young warrior from the field six times on the first day of the Noxian siege, Purvis had finally given up on trusting him and had placed a guard outside the cottage door. Jarvan had responded by leaping out the window. Because the poor sentry had been stationed outside the room, he hadn't noticed Jarvan's absence until evening meal. Afraid of upsetting the Prince, the sentry had meekly knocked on the door for a good hour, until Purvis had decided to pass by.

When they found that Jarvan had slipped out  _again_ , the Captain-General had the sentry flogged. He then called for an operational pause—effectively granting the Noxians a break in the fighting—while he ferreted out the stray prince.

Hoping to avoid another operational pause, today before the dawn had even broken through the clouds Ivar Purvis sent the finest duelist in the entirety of Demacia to babysit the Prince of the Realm. And if that was not enough, he set the Dauntless Vanguard about the cottage like a fence to keep in a prize horse.

Jarvan had put up a fight—throwing the equivalent of a tantrum in front of the Captain-General—but Ivar had taken one look at him and had told him, in very slow tones, that this was ' _for your own good_ '.

Not for the first time that day, Jarvan IV pulls his gaze away from the window and stares at his companion. Tobias Laurent hasn't moved even an inch from where he had assumed his post by the doorway hours earlier. His gloved hand is still on the elegant, silver swept hilt of his rapier and his glaucous eyes, though hooded, are alert and awake.

Wearing the cornflower blue, pale white and pastel yellow cavalier uniform of the Royal Guard with tall black boots and the signature black wide brimmed hat topped with a large white feather, he cut a foppish figure. Jarvan had spent the first hour mocking his attire.

Tobias had simply stared at him, and with the characteristic sneer of House Laurent had said 'Ze designers 'ave poor taste.' It was a flick of the nose towards House Lightshield, and a subtle one at that.

Not only was Tobias scion of a House known for its dueling prowess, he also had old blood in him. The Laurents were older even than the Lightshields or the Benoics, but time and a reckless interest in sword fighting had brought them to heel. Hearsay was that the Laurents had once been in line for the throne, but a Lightshield had bested them at their own game.

"What time is it?" Jarvan asked him softly—he had been throwing that question every hour hoping to find a moment when the man would fall asleep. Tobias hadn't failed to answer yet.

The duelist reaches into his waistcoat and pulls out a golden pocket watch attached to a delicate-looking chain. It takes less than a minute for him to say 'ten to ze fourteenth 'our' in his accented voice and Jarvan turns his head away. It was two in the afternoon—but the sky outside was hardly representative of that.

"Where is the Captain-General?" Jarvan queries. Tobias blinks and gives the slightest shrug of his shoulders.

"It is almost as if I 'ave been outside!" The duelist replies mockingly. "'Ow am I to know where ze Captain-General is?"

"You  _are_  part of the Task Force." Jarvan points out. He waves his hand, as if he was bidding a servant to leave. "Go find him. I want to talk to him."

"Why, so you can run away like a little girl?" Tobias sneers at him. Jarvan finds himself frowning at his candor. " _Non_ , I am with ze Royal Guard. Zere iz a great difference between me and ze poor bastard you 'ad Ivar whip."

"Yes, he wasn't a prick." Jarvan mutters under his breath as he cradles his chin in his palm. Tobias' response was to make a disgusted noise in the back of his mouth.

Barely five minutes pass before Jarvan rises from his chair. Tobias shifts his weight onto his other foot so as to better look at him.

"Get out of the room." The Prince of the Realm makes a shooing gesture, one that the duelist takes with relative indifference.

"Is zis your best trick?" Tobias raises one elegant eyebrow at him.

"No, I just need to use the chamber pot." For good measure, he moves to the little pot in the corner and begins to loosen his belt. He didn't really feel like using the facilities, but if it would get the man out of the room for even a while, it was worth a try.

"Zen piss and shut up,  _morceau de merde_." Tobias snaps irritably.

"So you can look at my—"

" _Yes_ ," Tobias exaggerates his own speech as he rolls his eyes and makes kissing noises. "Oooh, Prince Jaaaarvan, I  _love_  ze sight of your  _tiny_  dick."

He would have laughed, but at the moment he was desperate to get out and so the mocking only made his temper flare. "One would think the Laurents to have  _some_  measure of character." He tries to snap back.

"What can I say? If you are rude, zen I too are rude. Did my words 'urt your little  _feelings_?" The emphasis on the word 'little' wasn't lost on the young prince and he tightens his belt furiously.

"When Ivar gets here, I'm going to tell him just how insolent you were!" Jarvan exclaims vehemently as he stomps back to his chair.

" _Va te faire mettre_. Ze Captain-General would not 'ave asked for me if 'e 'ad a problem with me." The duelist flicks his hand dismissively. Ten minutes pass as thunder booms outside the cottage walls. The sound of pouring rain is enough to drown out any soft noise in the room.

"Aren't you afraid? Don't you answer to the Captain-General?" Jarvan broaches. Tobias stares at him with a long-suffering gleam in his eye.

"No, this is a legitimate question." Jarvan hastily adds. Tobias glares at him. A moment passes before the duelist deems his question as worth answering.

"Why should I be afraid? 'e iz not Captain of ze Royal Guard." The Laurent's voice is cautious, almost as if he felt that Jarvan was going to bolt when he finished answering. "I answer to Madame Berault, and she answers only to your father. She said to  _watch_  you. So I 'ave been watching you."

"And?"

" _Meeeeerde_ ," He drawls. A dimple shows angrily against the right side of the duelist's face. "I am so  _tired_  of watching you, and so  _bored_. It is not as if you are a priceless zing to watch over."

"I  _am_  a priceless thing," Jarvan leans back in his chair and watches the noble's face tic in annoyance. "But if I  _did_  escape, what would you have done?"

"By oath, I am sworn to follow you wherever you may go." Jarvan waits for him to continue, but Tobias does not say anything else.

"Just  _follow_  me?" Jarvan stifles a grin.

" _Imbécile_. Zere is nothing in my oath zat says I am supposed to be your nanny. I am a  _duelist_. I do not guard babies with little dicks like  _you_." The Laurent turns his nose up at him, and taps on the hilt of his sword for good measure.

"So I could just…  _walk_  out of this room, without you trying to stab me?" If it had been  _that_  easy—

"Oh, I  _will_  stab you." Laurent's tone was firm and even a little happy, which mildly disturbed him.

"I'm the Prince of the Realm," Jarvan says slowly, as if the man needed reminding. "You can't  _stab_  me."

"You can  _accidentally_  fall on my rapier." Tobias quips.

"You're not  _allowed_  to stab me." Jarvan points out with an attempt at a smug grin. "You would be committing  _treason_."

Tobias' hand over the hilt of his sword twitched before he responded casually. "Not if  _you_  attacked  _me_."

The Heir Apparent of Demacia launches into a full blown laugh—mostly to hide his own nervousness. He had always been treated well, and everyone had always shown him some semblance of respect. Laurent was the first to throw back his bad behavior into his face and he was not sure if the man was serious or not in his threats. "I'm not going to attack you."

"Oh, I  _know_." Tobias' hooded eyes move to meet his, a muted but deadly gleam in his eye. Jarvan meets his gaze for a moment before he shirks away. "But  _zat_  is what I will tell  _zem_."

"So you're  _threatening_  me now?" There is a trace of hesitation in the Prince's tone—he wasn't sure if Laurent was kidding, not with that look in his eyes.

" _Mange de la merde et meurs,_ _ **pute**_." Tobias snarls in frustration as he grips at his sword hilt. His hand shakes as he does so, and the blade rattles angrily in its sheathe. "What will it take to  _shut you up_?"

"Well, if you'd just let me go—" Jarvan shrugs his shoulders, as if letting him out of the cottage was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Out of ze question." The Laurent shoots him down without any hesitation, a warning note in his voice.

"Well, you can  _follow_  me—" Jarvan tries that tact.

"And lose my 'onor? No, I would certainly stab you first. And I would do  _zat_  'appily." The slow and deathly way the man said it made the Prince think twice before opening his mouth again, so he turns his head and stares at the window again.

"Is there no end to the rain?" He muttered to himself. Outside, a large crow sets foot on a nearby tree, and shakes its feathers over a few soldiers from the Dauntless Vanguard as they walked past the Prince's window. 

Miles away the southern edges of the Howling Marsh would have made a beautiful, if eerie, picture. It was a place experiencing the right weather at the right time—which was to say that it was not raining, the sky was not very dark, and parts of the haunted marsh where the dense clouds had broken were even bathed in sunlight. The clouds rumbled and flashed green in the distant north, but there was no trace of magical interference here.

Here the toll of a steel and slugs engagement was more palpable. Blood oozed into murky water, body parts poked up from tepid pools. Flies had begun to gather in great clouds, forcing both sides to call a momentary halt in order to pull fly hoods and sheets onto their horses. They would have fought again, but there was the odor of the marsh to consider.

The cloying smell of decaying matter, already so strong given the magical origins of the quagmire, intensified to a point that the nauseating smell clung to cloth and skin and ensured that whatever meals were taken in the vicinity tasted the same.

Despite King Jarvan's distance from the front, the odor still managed to creep its way to him. He had stopped eating on the evening of the first day, and it was only with Xin Zhao's insistence that he now drank water and ate biscuits soaked in tea. He felt very weak and very tired, even if he had not been fighting himself.

The best way to describe the state of the Demacian army at two in the afternoon is to say that it was wholly wretched—what warmth that fell on the marsh only exacerbated the smell and the humidity of the place guaranteed that no one would emerge smelling like a normal human being.

They were at the southern fringes of the Howling Marsh, a place where the necromantic energies did not run so strongly. Here, the dead remained where they had fallen, but the combined smell of death and decay was enough for one to wish that the departed had risen to eat them instead.

Morale was low despite their circumstances—it had been two days since the meeting with the rest of the generals, and the Task Forces arranged against Boram had held on as best as they could. If the Noxian troops had been in better condition, the Demacians would most certainly have been overrun by noon the day before, but the 1st and the 6th Legions had not been at their best either, and the battlefield had only made their circumstances worse.

At least, the King hoped that such was the case for the Noxians.

It was almost refreshing how their armies had clashed in the civilized way. Boram and King Jarvan had not begun hostilities until it was well past eleven yesterday, and the fighting had stopped by the time the sun had set at nine in the evening. They had been ready to continue fighting again today, but the odor of the marsh and the flies had overwhelmed them all—Noxians  _and_  Demacians.

There was also the matter of Boram's decorum. While most of Jarvan's men had been peppered with artillery and projectiles, not a single thing had been thrown in the King's direction. He had been allowed to enter and leave the battlefield unscathed. Perhaps it was because Boram  _knew_  his enemy.

King Jarvan was of a more tepid temperament than his son and his seneschal. Breeding true to Lightshield stock with his almond skin, brown hair and hazel eyes, he did not make for a very imposing or fearsome figure—nor did he have any desire to.

He had the height and build of a warrior king, but the elder Jarvan had been born three years before the end of the Fourth Rune War. He had lived most of his days in relative peace, and had only very reluctantly served in the Fifth Rune War—not even as a frontline soldier, but more as a rear commander.

He was most definitely a  _peacetime_  king— the sort of man who always knew the best words to use, who saw the good in everybody and tried to do his best by everybody. He did not like to use force in any of its forms, but he was not dumb enough to trust men  _not_  to slaughter each other.

Like any ruler worthy of his throne, King Jarvan knew that humans were wolves to their fellows, and that only force could make humans understand that their fellows were  _not_  to be eaten. Knowing this fundamental truth of the world did not stop him from trying to be kind, however. He believed that being kind to others would make them kind to others also.

Despite his good nature, however, even King Jarvan could not extend the same courtesy to Boram because the man had his magic, but so far he had not seen the Eternal General on the field—only one of his sons, and unlike Draythe, Keiran had no magic in him at all. It was not hard to miss him—the boy was surrounded by Raedsel at all times.

It was almost funny, how the Elder Darkwill had made himself scarce. It was almost as if he knew King Jarvan would not be on the field either. While the King allowed himself to believe that Boram could be reasoned with after all, Xin Zhao refused to even entertain the prospect.

The bodyguard was currently pacing at the edges of the King's pavilion like he had been chained to the tent pole. Of course, Xin wasn't chained and he hadn't been in irons for years, but old habits die hard. His aging father Jarvan II had freed the man from the Fleshing Arena personally after receiving a tip from the Spymaster in those days. Since then the Ionian had sworn and had shown his fealty to House Lightshield, paying for their kindness with his own blood.

In the fleeting months after King Jarvan II's rescue, Jarvan III had been curious enough to measure the exact dimensions of Xin Zhao's pacing: three feet long and five feet wide. It was not until he had become King that Xin had deigned to tell him that those were the exact dimensions of a Noxian slave cage. Jarvan had tried to treat him better after that, but the man had noticed his coddling and had told him he was here to protect him, not to be sheltered by him.

"You must eat more," The bodyguard chided his liege lord as he offered a platter of fruit. Barely a second passed before a fly set foot on a succulent melon.

"No thank you," King Jarvan murmured politely. Xin Zhao frowned at him and pushed the platter closer.

"I must insist." He pressed. The King shook his head.

"I do not want to have to force feed you," The seneschal says as he flicks the offending fly off the fruit. "You have not been eating well."

The King put his hand on Xin's shoulder and patted affectionately. "I am sure I will eat again soon, just not at the moment. How goes the battle?"

" _What_  battle?" Xin replies around the melon he had put in his mouth, perhaps knowing that Jarvan would never eat it after a fly had deigned to rest on it. He chewed for a moment before he continued. "We have not clashed with the Noxians at all today. The flies and the bog are proving to be greater enemies."

"And there has been no magic at all?" The King leans forward to offer Xin a napkin—the juice had begun to drip from the corners of the seneschal's mouth.

"Not that I am aware of," Xin swallows his melon and pats at his lips with the napkin before he confirms. "No sight of Boram either. It is most assuredly a trap."

"Or the demon found a heart somewhere along the road." The King shrugs. "Whatever the reason, we should be thankful that no one has died thus far today."

"It  _is_  a trap." Xin repeats furiously. "And it is a  _very_  good one. This creeping malaise cannot possibly be natural."

"Maybe  _that_  is the magic," The King offers, though he knew very little about magic. He had not been born with it, and trusted the word of his brother-in-law more than he did the Captain-General's in that regard. "Maybe this whiff  _is_  his work."

"That would be very subtle of him." Xin angrily tears apart the grapefruit in his hands. The sound of fruit fibers ripping fills the air between them. The King pretends to ignore the stray juice that splatters against his robes. "I do not think Boram  _does_  subtle."

"Neither do I, old friend. I thought he would be bringing the storm here instead of La Forbie— but magic  _does_  take on many forms." The King folds his arms across his lap and reclines into his folding chair. He was beginning to feel his age, even if he was only forty-nine.

A light mist of the fruit's juices sprays onto the King's armor again as Xin finishes peeling the grapefruit from the platter and bites into it ferociously.

"Is there still no word from Durand?" The King asks.

King Jarvan liked to think that he was a good king and a forward thinking one. In the time of his father, the famous artificer Michel Durand's work had been considered as strange and unwelcome. Breathing life into inanimate things seemed to be trespassing into the realm of the gods.

When King Jarvan took the throne he gave Durand all that he needed, and now a good portion of Demacia was protected by sentinels who would never tire. It was a pity the man himself had disappeared crossing this same marsh a week ago. His magnum opus, Galio, had vanished with him.

"No word," Xin replies in between swallows.

"He should have accepted my offer to have him escorted. It is a shame," The King says sadly, looking at the distant marsh and wondering if it was worth it to send soldiers in. "I would have liked to have him here. He was the best artificer I had ever seen. Maybe he could have thought of a way to get rid of this smell."

"He is not the only mage alive. Where are our mages, or even that creeping brother-in-law of yours?" Xin grumbles.

"Our mages are occupied enough with preventing the men from vomiting onto their own shoes. Maximilian is at Mogron." The King supplies kindly. "And it would be nice for you not to describe his gait as 'creeping'."

" _Conveniently_  at Mogron." Xin Zhao mutters. The King knew his seneschal never liked the youngest of the Spiritmights. Why, he couldn't possibly fathom. Maximilian was kind, and he was loyal. He also gave very good advice. There was no reason to hate him.

"If dear Max were not at Mogron, Draythe would have a free run of it." The King comments, and Xin Zhao halts in his hateful muttering for a brief moment. "And then we would be boxed in from the south. It would be  _very_  unpleasant."

"I would take unpleasantness over politeness." Xin spits out another pit.

The King pats his seneschal again. The man had lived a hard life, his Xin Zhao. "I trust in dear Max," He says very seriously. "I do not think he would lead us astray for even a minute."

"As you say," The seneschal retorts. He finishes his grapefruit in silence, and, once he cleans his mouth and hands, tells the nearby servant to brew a cup of tea for the King.

"I wonder if my son is safe," The King muses out loud. Normally he would keep such personal thoughts to himself, but in the company of his seneschal he felt inclined to share.

"Captain-General Purvis will take care of him," Xin Zhao tells him as he watches the servant prepare the King's tea, face close enough to the manservant's shoulder to make it mildly uncomfortable. "And if not, there is always the Royal Guard."

"It is a very  _small_  Guard." The King says with a small voice.

"The Dauntless Vanguard is there also. They would protect the Prince with their lives." The seneschal says in a rough tone that he meant to be soothing. He offers the finished cup of tea to the King.

King Jarvan takes the cup and saucer. He thinks of what his brother-in-law had said before the battle as he looks into the amber water. The day Spiritmight had warned him about had come and gone already; surely whatever doomsday thing Maximilian had thought of was over.

"Yes," He mutters into his tea. "I suppose so."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**  This is supposed to be much bigger, but because of how the events go, I decided to clip it right here with King Jarvan. This means you'll all be getting the next chapter much earlier.

There's a lot going on in the background for this piece, and a lot of magic talk being thrown around. I felt it was prudent to swap about so that you (the readers) could see the entire battlefield, and to see the differences between the Noxians and Demacians.

I hope you enjoy Swain's long-overdue cameo! He's still a lieutenant-colonel, which means he needs to climb the ranks a bit more.


	24. Evans Gambit

_This is no case of petty right or wrong_

_That politicians or philosophers_

_Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot_

_With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers._

_Beside my hate for one fat patriot_

_My hatred of the Kaiser is love true: –_

_A kind of god he is, banging a gong._

_But I have not to choose between the two,_

_Or between justice and injustice. Dinned_

_With war and argument I read no more_

_Than in the storm smoking along the wind_

**THIS IS NO CASE OF PETTY RIGHT OR WRONG (Edward Thomas)**

* * *

**TWO HOURS LATER…**

It was four in the afternoon at La Forbie. The rain had not stopped at all. In fact, it had intensified to a blinding curtain that had put out all the torches the Captain-General had placed around the town's perimeter—even the magical ones that were nothing but flammable runestones on a stick. Faced with such poor visibility, the man had withdrawn his forces and had positioned them closer to the township's low walls.

Tobias Laurent had joined his charge by the window an hour ago. He did not like how everything outside had faded into pallid shades of green and grey. Even the temperature had begun to fall—every now and then he had to wipe the glass to keep it from misting up. He had once been able to see the silhouettes of the Dauntless Vanguard as they did their circuit around the cottage, but because Purvis did not want to waste a combat asset they had been moved further away from the cottage and replaced by the fresher Royal Guard. Every now and then, a flash of green would herald a lightning bolt, and then a rolling crack would follow. Dust would fall down the rafters in the wake of the bolt's arrival.

"They will strike soon, I think." Jarvan said to him. The duelist had helped the Prince pull on his armor earlier with a bit of grumbling. "I'm looking forward to it."

It was a fine set, even Tobias had to admit. The Prince's armor looked to be made of ensorcelled iron, with delicate brass filigree running about and around like ivy. It was fluted, which gave it a flowing and banded appearance not unlike a woven basket, and laden with rivets that had been polished down so as to not be a bother. The coat of arms of his House—a shield encircled by a halo of light—was embossed onto his pauldrons. His weapon was close by—an enchanted, segmented lance whose parts were connected by a thick metal cable, able to expand and contract on a whim. It was a strange contraption, but it was one that suited the Prince of the Realm to a tee. Why bother walking to his opponent if he could just impale the unlucky bastard from a distance?

There was hardly a mark on both his arms and armor—Jarvan did not use those in those times he had snuck away. It was too recognizable. All of it then was pristine and perfect as the day the armorers, artificers and blacksmiths had made it. A pity the man who wore it was very unpleasant and spoiled.

"If I were you, I would not wish for zings zat will kill me." Tobias muttered under his breath as he reached down to his waist and found the comforting silver hilt of his rapier. He would do much better work outside with the army, but Madame Berault had told him to stay here and play nanny.

Tobias cared very little for Ivar Purvis and his feelings. The Captain-General was too much of a  _northerner_ —all smothering concern and fearful of the King's displeasure. The King was just a man. There were greater things to be afraid of, like family honor. Indeed, the only reason why Tobias hadn't yet left Jarvan IV was because he cared too much for House Laurent's reputation. No Laurent had ever left their post. He would not be the  _first_.

"It wouldn't be boring, at least." Jarvan quipped.

"You are young and stupid; toying with ideas zat you do not understand." Tobias' snappish reply was not quite as energetic as he would have wanted it.

"Have  _you_  fought the Noxians before?" Jarvan asked curiously. Tobias took a moment to think if he  _had_  to indulge the Prince's curiosity. It was not as if anything horribly important was happening at the moment. Outside the cottage the concerns of the world fell onto Ivar's shoulders. In this room, his only charge was the Prince of the Realm.

" _Oui_ , at Belvoir and at Jacob's Ford—zat 'owling Marsh." The Laurent answered at length.

"The Noxians won both times." Jarvan pointed out.

" _Oui_ ," The Laurent's smile couldn't have been harsher, his eyes aggrieved. "Many of my friends are either dead or walking around trying to eat people.  _C'est la vie_."

"I didn't think you capable of having friends." Jarvan's tone was everything but kind. Tobias resisted the urge to poke him like a pincushion. Despite his attempt at self-control, his sword hand twitched against his rapier's silver hilt. To his credit, the adolescent Prince seemed to understand; he laughed nervously and did not speak again.

With the Demacian's perimeter torches put out by the rains and with alien green lightning bolts terrorizing Demacian defensive positions, the remnants of the 2nd Legion could more or less regroup in peace. The storm had granted the Noxian columns some measure of cover, but the Noxian troops could not see through their own storm, and the terrain eventually became too difficult to traverse.

South of La Forbie where the Demacians seeded their fields, the ground beneath the dirt was more clay than silt, a fact only made apparent when the Demacian engineers had dug their trenches. Trying to walk through the stuff in the constant downpour was quite like wading through a pool of chowder; in the rains the clay had become a thick and clinging mess that needed a good amount of shaking or prying to pull loose. It didn't help that, in places where the Demacians  _hadn't_  laid down planks of wood to walk on, the muck was persistently churned about by booted feet and worked into a demonic batter. The blackish-grey mixture claimed footwear and men with alarming regularity, which only compounded their troubles. Closer to the river the annoying clay was joined with silt, and made walking through the trenches close to impossible.

In between slipping and hitting the walls of the trench and pulling out men who had the misfortune to fall flat on their face, Darius had found himself covered head to toe in it. His heavy armor only became more cumbersome as they progressed. Every now and then he'd stop, stand in the rain and swipe the more cumbersome chunks off, but the stuff would eventually make its way back to him. In the end, after ten minutes of misery, Darius had directed his forces to leave the trenches and brave open ground instead of tolerating the muck. He had weighed his options before giving the order.

He'd lose the element of surprise crossing the fields instead of using the trenches, but in exchange the columns would have an easier time marching. He figured that shaving off time and taking his chances with the Demacians was much better than trying to remain incognito and falling into slop every three seconds. Fighting people was infinitely easier than fighting the elements. In this way, Darius had managed to make the three miles in two hours. If he had still been in the Academy, his Chief Instructor would have had him beaten for making such slow time.

The townspeople of La Forbie hadn't bothered to raze their fields before the Noxians had arrived, and since the siege had begun none of them had been out to tend to their fields. The Captain-General then, seemed to be the sort of man who would rather starve his own people than let them die by a Noxian's hand. It was close to the end of July and the plants had been thrown into confusion given the weather. Taking his chances and betting that some crops had ripened too early, Darius had put a few men on foraging duty as they marched south. These gatherers brought back quite a bit: plump tomatoes, fragrant corn, rotund melons and firm cucumbers. Darius passed the rations around the columns to ward off hunger. At the moment, the Demacians' hard work was for the Noxians to enjoy.

Every now and then he would encounter another human being along the way, and before he took his axe to their gut he would holler out the 2nd Legion's challenge. He would then wait for the customary pass word—if the man or woman answered correctly he would welcome them to the column. If he or she did not know the word he would kill them promptly so as to not waste any more time.

A military staple in the Noxian army, where there was absolutely no regulation about showing one's Noxian allegiance save for finding some way to display one's rank, countersigns were used to verbally confirm if one was an enemy or a friend. In the heat of battle, one could never be too certain if the approaching force was Noxian or Demacian. In the days before the rule that mandated displaying a Noxian symbol on one's equipment, countersigns were used in order to verify if one was Noxian. The way one went about it was this: upon sighting a stranger, one would issue a verbal challenge. One would then wait for the pass word confirming the stranger's allegiances.

Challenge and pass words always changed every twenty-four hours, which always kept the Noxian infantry on their toes lest they be cut down by one of their own. Each Legion had their own challenge and pass words, and each company had their own version of the countersign to remember. Needless to say, it was a daily chore to remember word pairs.

At this time, the 2nd Legion's challenge word was 'Mountain'. The appropriate response was to reply 'Place'—which was easy enough to remember, given that their General's name was Caspian de Montolieu. The 5th Legion challenged with 'Knife' and expected 'Cloak'—a nod to their General, Marcus du Couteau. Across both Legions, the current Noxian challenge to verify if one was friendly was 'Drain Pipe', with the pass word being 'Swamp Rat'.

Supposing one was from the 2nd Legion and one was challenged with the word 'Knife', replying with the pass word 'Swamp Rat' sufficed. Conversely, if one forgot both sets of Legion-specific code words, one could simply scream 'Drain Pipe' and wait for the other force to reply 'Swamp Rat'. This was the version most Noxian soldiers bothered to remember. This was essentially how Darius managed to  _not_  get himself killed when he came across elements from the 5th Legion that had made a perimeter at the grid coordinates Swain had told him to go to. General du Couteau's men had put up a makeshift fence using planks of sodden wood and had sprung up the moment they saw the outline of Darius' forces through the rain. Shouting 'Swamp Rat' had never felt so good.

He had been received with mild interest, and had been told to wait for a few minutes while word of his reinforcements passed to those in command. It didn't take long for someone to come and fetch him.

"Ho there. Lieutenant Gardenly, with Grimdark. You're with the schmucks from the 2nd Legion? I don't suppose you've got a head count?" A woman with smattering of freckles on her face and a lieutenant's bolts on her leather shoulder pad asked him. He couldn't see much else of her—she was slathered from head to toe in the same muck.

"Lieutenant Darius, with the Black Watch; the headcount is more or less at fifteen hundred, lieutenant." Darius answered easily. "Light and heavy infantry only; no artillery, cavalry or mages."

He had found a number of stray companies on his march south, and most of them had been from the 2nd Legion as expected. Their captains had either died or gone away, so the unhappy officers left with the men had been more than ready to follow him instead of wallowing and waiting to die. Only a few of those men were lieutenants; the rest was made up of sergeants and other ranking conscripted personnel. It was admirable, how they did not take the opportunity to desert.

"We were expecting a bit more, but we'll take what we can get." She gave him an appraising stare, took in his bedraggled and muddied armor with an air of amusement. "Darius, you say? You him, then? The Baton that de Croix wants to put on a rack?"

"My rather  _sordid_  reputation precedes me, I see." Darius replied dryly as he reached over to wipe of the mud from one of his pauldrons, exposing his rank insignia.

"Oh, Maynard makes a great fuss every now and then. No one listens." She told him with a curt nod at the small white streak on his head. Gardenly gestured for him to follow her. "Leave your men here. My second'll see them settled in. We've a warning order up, so we can't waste time."

A warning order meant General du Couteau was prepared to make his move within the next few hours. It was more or less a standing bulletin issued to the men to be prepared for whatever the General thought to do. He couldn't waste any time dillydallying.

"No one listens?" Darius repeated with a perplexed look on his face, scarcely believing that Maynard of all people would be  _ignored_.

"No one who wants to piss off a  _general_." Gardenly replied with a laugh. "I don't think I need to tell you which _._ "

 _du Couteau,_  Darius surmised. It  _had_  to be Marcus du Couteau.

As Gardenly's sergeant hollered for Darius' men to follow him, Darius followed the female lieutenant without any complaint.

"When the perimeter guard passed word of your arrival, Captain di Castellamonte was quick to request provisional command of the Black Watch. General du Couteau allowed her that." She volunteered the information without waiting for him to ask. "You know her nature; let's not keep her waiting."

The 5th Legion's bivouac was quite large, taking up three miles of farmland and lying across the road to La Forbie like an exhausted slug. Gardenly led him past several battalions, tents and pickets laden with horses; the soldiers of the 5th did not bother with digging graves in the dreadful weather. Instead they stayed underneath bushy trees or pulled a Demacian standard over their heads. Everyone here seemed to be in better spirits, and aid tents were few and far between. Compared to the 2nd Legion, General du Couteau had come out of the initial clash fairly whole and unmolested.

Captain di Castellamonte had a tent all to herself on the road, surrounded by the remnants of a ballista and ragged Demacian flags too ruined to serve as cover in the rain. That was where Gardenly had left him, a laughing remark thrown over her shoulder on the slim chances of his survival.

He didn't hesitate to scratch on the wet canvas—he knew that if he did take time to gather his own thoughts the Chief would hit him over the head for his indecision when he did enter—and was rewarded with a muffled 'enter'.

His first thought was that the Chief seemed to have a talent for evading dirt. Just as she had done during his Crucible all those months ago, she had somehow managed to stay immaculate even if everyone else was covered in muck. She was still as frigid and eerily stiff as he had remembered her, with the same number of lines on her face and the same unsatisfied gaze and ready scowl. Her obsidian daggers were on the table, glowing morbidly in the lantern light. She was wearing an oilskin cloak that hid the rest of her, but from the way the fabric curved and bent, she was wearing armor underneath it all. Her boots were the only part of her that was relatively dirty, with flecks of mud creeping up to her laces.

Strongbow was sitting across her, a half-empty glass of what looked and smelled to be whiskey on the camp table. The archer was slightly cleaner than Darius, but dirtier than the Chief. His cape was fading and fraying at the edges and his armor had gone through a bit of wear. He wore a browned bandage about his neck as if someone had tried to shiv him, and had a few new lines on his face. There was very little furniture in the tent: she had a table with a lantern, three wooden folding chairs and a camp bed in the corner. The Chief traveled light.

"Absolutely filthy  _and_  late as ever, lieutenant." She drawled at him in lieu of a greeting. He had  _almost_  called her Chief Instructor, but knowing that they were in the army instead of the Academy, he had caught himself just in time. "I have no excuse, Ch—Captain."

"No excuse, you say?" She repeated with a sharp hiss at his stumbling. "Well, you are certainly quick to shoulder blame."

"I am an officer, ma'm." In Darius' mind there was no point in sidestepping his duty. She had taught him better. "I am responsible for my failings, and for that of my men."

"And you  _have_  failed a number of times, so I have heard." She did not even rise, content to verbally shower condescension at him from her seat. Clearly, he had not earned enough of her respect to have her stand up to berate him. "And this is only your most recent slight: to take two hours to march three miles. Have you been picking daisies on the way? You are Baton of Boram's Point."

"I will do better next time." Darius offered, knowing full well it would not suffice.

Her scowl deepened, if it was at all possible to display one's displeasure even more beyond turning one's mouth downward. He felt like a new officer candidate in the Academy again—all anxiety and wanting to please someone who did not think one's best was  _enough_.

"William has told me how you've been since your graduation." She tilted her head towards Strongbow. The archer took the time to finish off the rest of his drink. "I was not pleased to hear about Korovino, nor am I pleased to see you now. You have been rather underwhelming. We thought better of the Wolfman's eldest."

He had always known he would never be good enough in her eyes, but to hear from the woman herself that he still had not lived up to her expectations was like slowly applying a brand to his side. Admittedly, her standards  _were_  impossible—but that didn't stop him from wanting to achieve them. She had been, and still was, his god.

"I have done my best, ma'm." He tried. It sounded weak, pitiful; more an excuse than an actual justification.

She stood up then, and he knew instantly what was going to happen. He steeled himself and took the gauntleted punch in the gut quietly. After fighting for two days and marching for an untold number of miles, it was a miracle he didn't fall over.

The strike was unfair beyond all reckoning, because he  _had_  done his best, but he had been trained very well at Boram's Point. He thought it justified for her to hit him for being such a failure. After all, she had done such so many times before.

She curled her fingers about his throat, felt his lifeblood beating against the leather of her glove and growled like a she-wolf with an unruly son. "You are making me regret giving you this scar of yours. Perhaps I should have bled you out."

Despite his discomfort with such physical contact he did nothing but stare, obedient and subservient. To speak would be to insult her, to question her judgment.

Only then did she smile, and even that was colder than the rain that fell outside the tent. She removed her fingers from his throat and turned to look at Strongbow. "But you are correct, William; for all his flaws, he  _is_  obedient, and still alive."

" _Stupidly_  obedient." Strongbow quipped back. "Doesn't know when to  _not_  be, that's the problem."

Darius gave him a pointed glare, the kind that said 'I'm still in the room'. He didn't think it safe to speak—the Chief might hit him for speaking out of turn.

"One can never be  _too_  biddable." Captain di Castellamonte said with a thin and dangerous smile. "If you survive the feint, then I may rethink your worth."

She gave him a little pat on the cheek that bore the mark of his loyalty, as a handler would pull on the collar of an attack dog to make it froth at the mouth. It hurt him the same way.

His Instigation had cut him deeper than the scar on his face, had left a festering wound in his mind. He did not like having that mark touched, did not enjoy it when people stared at it for longer than a minute. It made him remember how helpless he had been and how they had starved and beaten him—all for the sake of preparing him for torture by the enemy.

If she had been someone else he would have punched them in the face, but this was his god and he did not want to show her that he was hurt. So he stays nervously still and mentally quivers like a distressed lamb until she removes her hand.

"You and your men are under my explicit command until the feint is complete. You may rest here, if you like." She was still watching him carefully. He had to work to keep his front. "General du Couteau intends to march at the seventeenth hour, but there  _is_  a warning order; we may leave at any time."

"Thank you, Captain." Darius dipped his head quickly. He then lingered with his gaze down at the floor of the tent respectfully until she had left.

"Still alive, I see." Strongbow said with forced cheer. Darius looked up at the archer, and saw that the man was pouring himself another drink. Was he the sort of person who  _liked_  to crawl into bottles?

"Imbibing seems to have become your favorite pastime." Darius observed. He took care to brush the mud off himself before he sat opposite the archer and set the dark communication shard on the table in case anyone needed him.

"Good hobby; you should take it up too." Strongbow said. It was an awful attempt at humor and the both of them knew it, but there wasn't much happiness to be had in their present circumstances.

"How many hours are we going to serve as the feint?" Darius asked. He didn't know much beyond what other people had told him to do.

" _Maybe_  three hours," Strongbow replied, a slight slur on the last syllable. "That is my most optimistic guess; we will be in front of them."

"Such as we are?" Darius asked morosely. It didn't seem practical to put the exhausted troops at the front line.

"The 5th think we are going to desert, that is why." Strongbow said with a half-drunken laugh. It sounded more like a strangled sob to him. "It is on the warning order."

"We would do the same." Darius finishes for him.

"The  _very_  same; at least du Couteau is giving us the  _promise_  of an hour. de Montolieu would have told us to go off and die the moment everyone arrived." Strongbow said, and he took that moment to drink from his cup. "So—we march  _before_  the 5th, not after, and we will hold the line or die. Easy enough to do, even while drunk."

"Do you think this feint will work?" Darius glanced at the quiet communication shard and then over at Strongbow. "Swain seemed very sure of himself."

Strongbow looked to resist the urge to belch. " _Swain_ ," He managed to say around his discomfort. "You've been talking to a Swain? Are you  _sure_  the man is a Swain?"

"Yes, he said he was a lieutenant-colonel. I didn't get his first name… if he had one, that is." Darius took up his shard and offered it for Strongbow to look at. The archer refused; instead he took the moment to ponder.

"Perhaps his name just  _is_  Swain," Strongbow said finally. "If he is of that unfortunate House, it's a miracle he hasn't died yet."

"Perhaps he is being protected somehow." Darius broached idly.

"When you say  _that_  it makes one wonder; what can possibly protect someone from  _Boram_?" Strongbow rubbed at his dirty chin, sending partially dried flakes of mud on the table.

Darius didn't know either. It seemed an inconceivable thing, to be using a disgraced House name and to still be alive and even certain of one's survival and success.

"Maybe there  _is_  something greater than the Eternal General." Darius said with all the ignorance of a man born underground. Knowing full well this was the Chief's tent; he reached over and cleared the table of Strongbow's filth.

"Do not let people hear you say  _that_ ; it will get you killed or  _worse_." Strongbow said sharply. "It is all well and good to wonder, but do not wonder out loud."

Darius shrugged. He did not like politics, and all the secrecy involved when it came to playing that game. He had no desire to know beyond what he needed to. It was a pity people liked to tell him things he did not want to know.

"So you talked to a man named Swain." Strongbow returned to the first point. "What did he say?"

" _He_  talked to  _me_ , and told me to march south so that he could get the Prince." Darius replied simply.

"Did he tell you General du Couteau would be here?" Strongbow asked.

"No," Darius admitted. "But he did sound like he expected it when I told him I would try to find General du Couteau during the feint."

"Sharp asshole sounds like a Swain." Strongbow commented. "If he does capture the Prince, I would not be surprised."

"Yes, but  _is_  he a Swain?" Darius returned. Strongbow gave him a withering look— _we are not talking about_ _ **that**_ _again_.

Darius shrugged. "As I understand it, we have…  _appropriated_  by the 5th Legion?"

" _Temporarily_  appropriated," Strongbow replied promptly. He seemed to like the change of topic, although serving as the feint was no laughing matter either. "It's certainly better than your captain's last orders to ' _sit in hole and wait to die_ ', don't you think?"

"Well,  _yes_ ," Darius said slowly. "But that is not my point: how much of the 2nd Legion has been absorbed into the 5th?"

"Those on the north side are still under de Montolieu. They will be the ones to snatch the Prince." Strongbow did not mention Swain, nor did he need to. "The standards down south are all with du Couteau; that is to say, we will be doing the dying."

" _Is_  our objective still La Forbie? Does High Command still intend to capture the town?"

"I don't think the town is our goal at this point." Strongbow told him honestly, punctuating his words with a vague shrug. "We've been out for too long. Any longer and the conscripts are going to tuck tail. Even High Command cannot ask them for more. No, it has got to be snatching the Prince and only that."

"It's been two days. What's another one?" Darius said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "If they  _wanted_  to run, they would have done it already."

"You can keep a conscript on if you make him think he is going to get something out of it, like combat pay or a pat on the head." Strongbow's tone brooked no argument. He had always adopted a specific pitch and intonation when he felt very strongly about something and wanted to make a point. "But once he becomes aware that High Command has no care for his survival, he will not follow; not if he's got half a brain left in his skull. Two days of abuse is stretching the chain and it  _will_  break if the conscripts do not have a furlough."

Darius couldn't help but feel cheated. He had been shot at, stabbed and kicked into the mud more times than he could count for the past two days, and in the end he had gone through all that trouble for  _nothing_. In those two days he had told himself repeatedly his orders were his greatest obligation, that taking the town was their ultimate goal. To have his dedication spat on was more than he could bear—but  _that_  was the bitter truth of being a soldier. He was a tool. He had lost the right to refuse when he had signed his contract. He had no choice but to do what was asked of him, even if the orders were hardly consistent or even logical. All he could hope for was to survive. Hardly surprising Strongbow liked the company of a bottle, then.

Almost as if to exemplify Darius' thoughts, Strongbow took the time to drink from his glass before he added rather morosely. "Our truth changes every minute. Who knows? We might still take the town. We might still succeed."

"We might." Darius replied, though he knew they probably wouldn't. He got up from his chair and said. "… Well, I am going to look for the mess tent, if there is one. Better to die with a full belly."

He would have left the tent, and Strongbow would have gone with him, but at that moment the communication shard flared on the table and called his attention. At Strongbow's inquiring gaze, Darius reached over and answered it. "Lieutenant Darius; 3rd Platoon, Black Watch out of the 101st."

"Lieutenant-Colonel Swain; 3rd Battalion, 1st Standard." Swain's reply was as flat and bored as it had been two hours ago. "I take it you have arrived."

Strongbow swigged his glass, slightly quivering in his chair like a leaf almost falling off a branch. Darius watched him quake before he deigned to answer. "I have managed to make contact with several companies during the walk, as you have ordered, sir. The last head count I conducted was at fifteen hundred. And—"

"You found General du Couteau, I presume? Bivouacked on the road?"

Not for the first time, Darius wondered how Swain  _knew_. The man's precognition was beginning to frighten him. In the way of men who knew very little about something that was obviously above his head, Darius reached over and took a sip of Strongbow's whiskey.

"Yes, lieutenant-colonel." His voice emerged sounding more or less like a croak as he spoke around the heat that assaulted his throat and nose. "The General has assumed command of all 2nd Legion units south of La Forbie. We intend—"

"There is no need to inform  _me_." Swain's tone is snide, amused. Darius grimaced at that. If Swain knew  _everything_ , what was the point of telling him  _anything_? "I know what the general intends. Have you been screaming lately, lieutenant, or is that voice of yours scratchy from drink?"

"Sir," Darius didn't know what else to say then. He resisted the urge to pull aside the tent flap to see if Swain was lurking somewhere nearby. Knowing that was probably his exhaustion talking and making his inherent distrust worse, Darius rubbed at his nose and resisted the urge to sneeze in the silence that followed. The archer was drinking stern stuff.

"Do you consider yourself as an intelligent man, lieutenant?" The idle question seemed like a suspicious thing, coming from the man who hadn't bothered to tell Darius anything beyond asking him to die for the sake of  _his_  advance.

"I consider myself as being intelligent enough for the tasks given to me, sir." Darius replied slowly.

It was strange to hear Swain laugh. It was like listening to a crow call in the distance, all lungs and dry throat. Darius looked over at the archer in askance, and all Strongbow could do was shrug. He didn't know what the man's game was either.

"So you  _are_." Swain seemed to marvel at his honesty. Or the lieutenant-colonel had a particular liking for laconic humor. Darius didn't know which, nor did he want to know. "Do you know the punishment for desertion?"

"Death, sir." Darius replied succinctly.

"In Demacia they would say 'stoppage of gin'." Strongbow muttered.

"Quite. And is it a terrible thing, death?" Another cursory probe from the lieutenant-colonel; Darius wondered if he was  _deliberately_  wasting time. After all, a man like Swain wasn't the type to be dragging out a conversation out of the goodness of his heart. If the lieutenant-colonel even  _had_  one—he hadn't even met the damn man yet.

"No, sir." He put out the usual reply.

"There are more terrible things than death, lieutenant." There was a strange, almost alien tone to Swain's voice then. It was almost as if the lieutenant-colonel was trying to tell him something. He wondered if  _that_  was why Swain asked if he was intelligent.

"Sometimes, death is a  _reward_. Think of your oncoming feint as a pat on the head."

"If I still have a head to be petted by the time the feint is over," Darius replied snidely. "I will let you know, sir."

At that point, the lieutenant-colonel cut the connection and left Darius with more questions than answers.

"How much gold are you willing to wager," Strongbow said with a nervous laugh that only emerged whenever he was dealing with others above his station. "That we are not going to even make it to the mess tent before they call us out to fight?"

"Our truth changes on the minute." Darius retorted with the same words the archer had said to him only moments ago. As if the gods were mocking him, there was a scratch at the canvas flap. Lieutenant Gardenly poked her head in just as Darius finished tucking the communications shard into his satchel.

"Time to earn your combat pay, gents." She said. "Captain di Castellamonte is calling for formation. You've the honor of being the tip of the spear."

Darius reached over and finished off the archer's glass, regardless of his dislike for alcohol and for the burning trail it left in his gullet. Strongbow just drank from the bottle as he gathered his things, slurring curses under his breath.

The higher one ascends in the ranks, the more one's priorities tend to change. As lieutenants, Darius and Strongbow's only worry was if their men would stand their ground. As a General, Marcus du Couteau had to think of that and  _more_. He held the trust of two hundred thousand men, and was beholden to more than just their mothers.

He would have led from the front as the lieutenants did, but given the careful timing required to pull off the snatch, Marcus du Couteau had decided to stay back a two hundred paces from the front line. He stood with the rest of his staff on a hill that offered a good view of La Forbie in the distance, and the farmland that the 5th Legion still had to cross in order to properly bait the Captain-General out.

The rain made it difficult to see beyond the first two miles but there was nothing to be done about it. On the second day, after hearing of their unsatisfactory progress, Draythe had decided to conjure the storm. So all this was Draythe's work, and the young Darkwill had only seen fit to inform the rest of the Joint Council of the maelstrom a scant hour before he told his mages to begin the spell. For all their power, even the Generals of the Joint Council could not complain. They had simply shut up and hurriedly created a new plan to go with it.

Admiral Inglefield had sailed as close as he could manage without risking the guns, with Rear-Admiral Lachance and the rest of the Navy picking up their cues from the commander of the 10th Fleet. A yellow flare fired toward the sea would tell him if it was safe to approach. Generals Howard Westley and Ulrich Hobbs had resigned the entirety of the 3rd and 4th Legions to the defense of Draythe's mages. Last Marcus had heard from them, they had been struggling to push the combined forces of Spiritmight, Cardigan, Esslin, Gillson and Lesauvage off. It said much for how the Demacians thought the nexus-aided super storm was 'unfair'.

In comparison, the last reports Marcus had received from the 1st and 6th Legions showed a more stagnant battlefield. Newly minted Dresden Novak did not want to repeat the mistake of his predecessor; General Brecht Halifax had promptly been executed when a spell had gone awry at Jacob's Ford. The Glorious First was in no danger of being eaten alive by undead any time soon. The 6th Legion, under Grand General Boram Darkwill himself, was oddly tame. Perhaps the Elder Darkwill had a plan of his own.

And then there was General Caspian de Montolieu, who had a more hands-off and destructive method of commanding his troops. Marcus did not have a high opinion of  _him_. The 2nd Legion had the highest conscript deaths and officer promotion rates in all of Noxus, as Caspian quite liked throwing lives away in the same manner a child would kill flowers to make a crown out of them; he used the souls placed in his care to secure commendations for himself and the aristocrats under him. When Draythe had told them of the storm, Caspian had taken that as a signal to push his men forward and then he had left them all to their own devices while he sat in his command tent a good three miles back. It was a good thing that the senior conscripted men of the 2nd Legion were mostly intelligent, because the many would not have survived at all if it weren't for the few.

Even before the beginning of the siege, Marcus knew that there was no way the exhausted 2nd and 5th Legions could unseat Purvis from La Forbie. The Captain-General would hold until the earth opened up underneath him. For his part, Marcus had kept his 5th Legion carefully. He did not like throwing his men. He did not like asking them to take a knife to their necks for no strategic benefit at all. He had been very spare with them, content to siege La Forbie from a distance. He traveled with his men and not away from them, as Caspian had done to his 2nd, and so the anti-magic veil did not affect the Dead Dogs as horribly as it did the Bendovers.

In true Demacian fashion, Ivar Purvis was waiting out the rain. He fought sitting on his ass, and Marcus was determined to push him off it—if only for a few hours. Boram Darkwill had given his list of wants, and as commander of a Legion  _and_  member of the Joint Council Marcus had to provide the answers. Marcus du Couteau did not just have obligations on the field of battle. Outside his soldiering, he had the aristocrat's game to play, with all the backstabbing and manipulation that such a thing entailed. Compared to his moves on the political front, sending men to die like pawns on a chessboard was so much simpler.

"The 2nd Legion has been called to formation," His aide-de-camp supplied helpfully. He was Marcus' assistant in matters that concerned the other Legions; as such, the young man held a communication shard of his own. The junior officer passed a sheaf of maps to his commander and patiently waited for the du Couteau to begin scanning through them.

"Our company commanders are inquiring if they should form behind the Bendovers."  His adjutant-general held the Legion's communication shard ready in his hand. The adjutant-general was one of the most senior conscripted men in the entire Legion with the rank of Sergeant-Major of the Corps. Befitting his rank, he had a communication shard for his work with the 5th Legion's officers.

"That was in the warning order, was it not?" Marcus asked in a firm voice. He did not even take his eyes away from the papers. "A general should not have to repeat himself."

It was what was expected of them all. The 2nd Legion would have done the same, if the 5th had been bloodied as they had.

The adjutant-general did not hesitate, though it was clear from the way his face slightly fell that he did not like the order at all. "Yes sir. I will pass the word on then. Any other orders, sir?"

"General order: the 2nd Legion will advance one hundred paces. The 5th Legion will keep a distance of fifty paces behind them. I want three ranks of heavy infantry in front, with light infantry following behind. Pikes and lances at the first line, with the rest of the melee weapons bringing up their rear. Warning order for the cavalry: prepare to charge within the next hour, and form up due west of our position."

The adjutant-general began to parrot his words. Marcus turned to face his provost marshal—the man he had put in charge of munitions and men. "How is the powder for the cannons? I understand the artillerymen are having a difficult time."

"Yes sir, the rain is making it difficult to light the powder." The provost marshal replied.

"Then we will have to go without. Resume fire with the trebuchets." Marcus said with a tight smile. He turned to look at his adjutant-general. "Cease firing once the 2nd Legion has finished their walk, and then issue the command to charge."

"All ranks, sir?" The adjutant-general was asking him if he wished the officers to join the conscripted men.

" _All_  ranks." Marcus affirmed. The conscripted should not fight alone. "The cavalry will be under my say-so."

"Orders for the gendarmes, sir?" The Gendarme-Commander asked him curtly.

"Follow behind and keep discipline. Make sure deserters are caught." Marcus replied with equal speed. "Let us begin the feint."

As the orders progressed through the chain of command, it would have been an awesome sight to see. The moment the message had reached the colonels through their shards, they passed the word down to the captains. From the captains, the orders went on to the lieutenants, and those men and women organized their conscripts according to how Marcus wanted them to form. He could see waves of movement as the 2nd Legion moved to the front, forming in two thin lines in front of the 5th. At his nod, the adjutant-general issued the command to march. It was almost like looking down at a chessboard, only it was raining, the board was not flat and the pawns were all people with their own hopes and dreams.

Marcus' uncle had once told him that the whole world was in chess. Every move had to matter, had to connect; there was no such thing as a wasted turn. A single misstep would take the rest of the game to correct, and, if it came to it, he had to have the will to sacrifice an endless number of pawns to save a king.

He had never fully understood all of it until he had been commissioned as a captain at the start of the Fifth Rune War twenty-five years ago. He had gone through his trial by fire with relative grace but lacking his House's flair, earning his Name with a knife and the beginnings of what would become Katarina's infamous  _Shunpo_. He had come to see how decidedly cruel the world was towards those who did not hold an advantage by birth, and sought to return Noxus to the deserving, as the first Grand General had intended. The world was his board, and he collected pawns with the hope that they would go on to become queens.

Marcus thought himself to be considerate, principled. His uncle had instilled in him a great love of the Noxian Ideal. He entertained rather radical notions in his mind— like sacrifice, honor, valor and graceful defeat— and so it was only fitting that Marcus hated Boram's Noxus. After all, for a meritocracy to occur, the ones in power must be benign. If not, then they must be considerate of their own weakness and willing to step aside to allow their betters the opportunity.

Strength would see each and every man to greater heights; that had been the Way before the Eternal General took his seat.

The root of his dissatisfaction lay in these modern days: instead of a proper, ever changing and improving society where corruption was a rarity, there was only nepotism and venality as those in power denied the people they deemed as their lessers with alarming regularity—despite the latter's talent in the face of the former's creeping decadence.

Marcus was in between; he had the wants of someone who only wished the best for his city-state and he knew what he had to do in order to see Noxus obtain her fullest potential. He was in the advantage and, unlike most of his peers, he wished for others to achieve the same glory.

He had the  _very_  Demacian belief that one should not leave others behind because there was potential in even the weakest link of the great chain, but held a Noxian view on the  _transience_  of supremacy—that is, the weak were always replaced by the strong, and that those who sought the people's leash must first have proved themselves worthy of holding it. Like a good Demacian, Marcus saw what was best in other people, and wanted to cultivate their talents for the betterment of his city-state. At the same time, as a Noxian he did not coddle or hold anyone's hand; he only gave what he felt was necessary to even the scales and give a person a fighting chance in the callous cesspool of prejudice and inequity that was Noxus.

Ultimately, he held the values of the most ancient Noxus in his heart and sought to bring the notion into the decaying present; to encourage strength, in  _all_  its forms, not just in gold, influence or physical might. That belief was evident in the composition of his 5th Legion; he had a hundred commoners for every one aristocrat and he took delight in running all his nobles through the hardest paths so as to see their true quality. He took a personal interest in the welfare of those who distinguished themselves in his Legion, and made it a point to intervene whenever he felt it necessary.

Marcus knew his Name carried weight. The House of Couteau was respected and feared. Unlike the patriarch of the House of Croix, he threw his influence about only to protect those he thought were deserving of his patronage; the strong, underprivileged young whom the corrupt nobility kept under heel. Spending out of his own pocket, uplifting and granting a leg up to those who held an infinite amount of potential—that was Marcus' little rebellion, his righteous defiance of Noxian aristocratic convention.

Talon would eventually become the most infamous of his many foundlings, but to truth be told, the best, brightest and most influential of his wards was Jericho Swain himself. His protégé was further up north, still under the nominal command of General de Montolieu. Because of the veil, however, Swain had given up on contacting Caspian, and instead had formulated the plan of snatching Prince Jarvan with General du Couteau.

They shared the opinion that the town could not be taken, so they decided to take the Prince instead. That would deal a dreadful blow to Demacian morale, and it would force the King's hand to reach elsewhere. Marcus knew Swain had a bone to pick with the boy, and it was all because of a failed assassination.

Years ago, when Darius had been in the second year of his education at Boram's Point, Jericho Swain had tried to assassinate the young Prince Jarvan IV on orders from the Eternal General. Queen Elaine had taken Swain's ill-aimed bolt, and he had been held captive and given up for dead. Somehow, the young assassin had managed to escape. With a mangled leg and a large raven on his shoulder, Jericho returned just in time to witness the complete dissolution of the House of Swain.

He had been taken into custody and had been scheduled for execution until Marcus had intervened to spare him from the guillotine, personally appealing to Boram Darkwill to grant him his life. General du Couteau had not asked for clemency, because he knew Darkwill was incapable of forgiveness. Instead, he had asked for  _time_. He had reasoned that Jericho  _had_  potential, even if he had failed as an assassin. As a  _mage_ , Swain could still serve Noxus, and he could still be of use to them all. There had been a prevailing rumor within aristocratic circles that Boram maintained his unnatural lifespan by consuming  _mages_ , and Marcus had played  _that_  card to the best of his ability.

Swain had been allowed to live with  _that_  whispered doom hovering above his head, and Marcus held onto the hope that the young man would find a way to escape it. He did not want that fate for anyone— _if_  it was true. A small part of him still allowed himself to hope that it was  _not_.

Almost as if he had known Marcus was thinking of him, the communication shard in the aide-de-camp's hand glimmered. The officer answered it as was his wont, and when the voice on the other side of the line identified himself as 'lieutenant-colonel Swain', the man had passed it to his general with a nod.

"General du Couteau," Swain said slowly, respectfully. "Has the Captain-General taken the bait?"

"Not at the moment," He returned. "If he does, I will pull him out of it."

"He will." Swain said with quiet confidence. "You  _are_  camped on his supply line."

"A pity the rains haven't allowed them the sight." Marcus muttered. "If, by some miracle, he does not see us approaching, then perhaps we can take the town."

"Battles can be won and lost in a turn." Swain reminded him. Jericho had learned to play chess from his father Thorvald, but only Marcus had proved to be a worthy opponent thus far.

"I will send word if I have secured his attention. Keep your men close; your leg is not what it used to be." Marcus reminded him.

"It is a reminder." His protégé's forced and calm voice veiled his real feelings on the matter.  _I do not keep myself a cripple out of masochism or self-pity_.

"I  _do_  worry for you, dear boy." Marcus said the words easily because he meant every syllable of it. As a father, he felt it was imperative to remind his children, biological or no, that he  _did_  care.

"… General." As usual, Swain only replied after a full minute spent in silence. He cut the connection soon after. Marcus passed the shard back to his aide-de-camp and watched the 2nd Legion begin their walk, silhouettes lit up in the rain thanks to the verdant lightning that arced down and struck the town. Siege engines snapped and creaked nearby as batteries sent great rocks flying towards the town.

"Disassemble the tent; we go with the army." Marcus du Couteau said. "Pass the word to General de Montolieu, if you can, that we are beginning the feint. If you cannot reach him, inform Lieutenant-Colonel Swain instead."

The first indication Marcus had of the Captain-General taking the bait was a report from one of the foremost elements of the 2nd Legion. A lieutenant by the name of Darius had seen activity on the walls and had passed the word to his provisional captain, Suzanne di Castellamonte. Marcus knew Darius. He had known the young man's parents. He also knew Suzanne. It went without saying that he trusted their word. He watched the walls with his binoculars and saw that it was as they had said.

"2nd Legion, stand ground," He said to his adjutant-general at once, not even bothering to remove his gaze from the binoculars in his hand. "5th Legion, reduce distance with the 2nd by fifty paces. I want Ivar to look at a sea of blades."

"2nd stand ground, 5th reduce distance by fifty paces." The officer repeated into his shard. There was a slight delay as the order was relayed through the chain of command, and then the army shifted and as he had ordered. He could see specks of light in the town—torches. The rain hid everything else, but with the shards and an attentive officer corps Marcus was everywhere at once. At that moment, the magical maelstrom scored a lucky hit—probably a bunker of some sort where the Demacians kept their munitions. For the second time in the past two days a great orange cloud came roaring out of the distant darkness, sending flames in all directions and setting several buildings on fire.

"2nd Legion, storm the town. 5th Legion follow until the gates and then lie down on the ground." Marcus said without hesitation. His adjutant-general blinked and stared at him in surprise before he spoke into the shard. The second's worth of delay resulted in a full minute before the first two ranks broke formation and went into a heated run towards La Forbie while the rest seemingly melted into the terrain.

Marcus reached down and checked the time on his pocket watch. Fifteen minutes past the seventeenth hour.

"Captain Lambert reports that he has captured the town square." The man told him. "Orders sir?"

Marcus held up a finger. He needed to wait longer. He needed Ivar to think that he had thrown his men. He needed the Demacian to do what his people did best, which was to become righteously angry and determined to push them out of the town. It was not until the thirtieth minute that his adjutant-general said. "Captain di Castellamonte wishes to inform you she is… 'tired of playing games,' sir. She and the rest of the 2nd have taken a significant number of casualties."

"Recall the 2nd Legion," He said. "File behind the first three ranks of the 5th. For the 5th: wait until you see the whites of their eyes before you stand and fight."

Marcus du Couteau hoped that Ivar was like any full-blooded Demacian. He hoped the Captain-General would chase the elements of the 2nd Legion like a hunting dog. Ivar's priority was the defense of the town, but seeing Noxians turn tail and run would embolden him.

He watched the specks shift and move in the rain. Barely two minutes passed before his adjutant-general spoke again. "Captain Girac wishes to report that the first Demacian columns are filing out of the gate." His adjutant-general said rapidly. "Captains Odilon, Gilbert and Loic second his report."

"Let them come," Marcus instructed him. His adjutant-general parroted him in the shard. "First five ranks, engage the enemy. For the rest: do not engage until you see the Captain-General on the field."

Through his binoculars he could see the faintest outline of the Demacian Task Forces. There were a fair number of them despite the two days of sieging and skirmishing, but he still held the numerical advantage.

"Captain Hoche asserts that the Captain-General has left the gates. He is on the field at this moment on a white horse." The adjutant-general said. "Reports of his banner are making their way through the lines."

"Engage them," Marcus replied. In the manner of a Noxian assault, the order to charge took time to make it through each element, and so the result was a staggered approach into the Demacian ranks. With pikemen and lancers in the front, the Legions had an initial advantage when it came to reach. His men should be able to deal first blood, and to repel cavalry if it ever became a threat. Once contact was had, both sides collapsed and melted into each other. He hoped the men would hold.

Marcus checked his watch again. Thirty-five minutes past the seventeenth hour.  _Now_  was the moment that required careful timing. "General order: the Legions will retire one hundred paces."

His adjutant-general relayed his command, and for a moment Marcus thought his officers would not obey, but then the ranks shifted again and did as he had asked. Marcus wanted Ivar to think he had won. He  _needed_  him to be damnably  _Demacian_. The entire feint was dependent on one man's arrogance and certainty. It was not until his adjutant-general mentioned that the Demacians were beginning to follow that Marcus allowed himself the luxury of  _breathing_.

"Now issue the command to Brigadier-General de Belluno: light cavalry will clash into the Demacian left flank. Inform me if and when they are prepared to cut them off from the gate." Marcus knew de Belluno had a good head on his shoulders. He would not gallop through muck and risk his horses. No, the man would take his time, and that was part of the problem. Marcus was a duelist and an assassin, not a cavalryman. He didn't know when de Belluno would arrive.

So the du Couteau kept his eyes fixed on his binoculars, waited for his adjutant-general to tell him that de Belluno was in position before he gave his express consent. "Now," He added for good measure. "Infantry will engage the enemy once more. Any word from Swain or de Montolieu?"

"We managed to reach General de Montolieu fifteen minutes ago." The 5th Legion's aide-de-camp quipped. "He said that the Demacian garrison manning the shore batteries has surrendered to the 2nd Legion."

"And the Prince?" It was unrealistic to think that Swain would have been able to snatch the Prince so soon, but Marcus allowed himself the thin hope.

"No report from Lieutenant-Colonel Swain as of yet, sir." The aide-de-camp said apologetically. "His last report was that he had encountered the Dauntless Vanguard on the field."

"And?" Marcus tilted his head.

"He said he liked a challenge, sir." His aide-de-camp smiled slightly.

"Inform me if Swain reports in again. Send a communique to Admiral Inglefield to tell him that the northern shore is clear; the 10th Fleet may sail at their pleasure." Marcus turned back to the on-going melee. "If de Montolieu hasn't yet puffed his chest at him while he fired his flare, that is."

All he could do now was sit and watch his men hold their ground. It wasn't until the clock struck the eighteenth hour that his aide-de-camp nearly fell over in his haste to tell him the news. By then the rains had stopped, and the unnatural lightning had faded. The elements of the 2nd Legion with them had been fighting for close to ten hours. Marcus didn't see where they were all now on the field. At this distance both Noxians and Demacians were human-shaped blurs.

Jericho Swain had encountered heavy resistance, as expected, but he had persevered. He had goaded the Demacians on by teasing their strongest flank with his weakest infantry, and had allowed them to chew on his numbers to draw the Prince out. Overconfident and brazen, the young Lightshield had charged headlong into the fray, and that was when Swain enveloped him with heavy infantry to the south and a cavalry charge behind his back. When the Prince had been knocked down into the mud, the Demacians had fought with renewed vigor. At that moment, de Montolieu's men had arrived to reinforce Swain's battalion. Together they managed to send the Dauntless Vanguard and Knightly Orders running with their tail tucked between their legs.

"Sound the recall." Marcus du Couteau told his adjutant-general then. The man nodded his head, barely able to hold back a tired smile. "Let Purvis keep La Forbie. We've gotten our prize."

The officer nodded and began to speak into his shard. Marcus du Couteau looked over at his aide-de-camp. "What of the other Legions?"

"The 1st and 6th report a draw at the Howling Marsh," The aide-de-camp said slowly. "There was a brief break in the defenses and they were able to get to the King, but the Demacians regrouped quickly and the seneschal sent them running. Captain Darkwill managed to distinguish himself. The 3rd and 4th Legions could not hold against the Demacians; they took a beating and rolled eighteen miles back."

" _Eighteen_  miles," Marcus repeated in mild surprise. "Draythe will have much to answer for, especially given Keiran's performance, but that is his father's worry and not ours. What of our men?"

"The 5th Legion reports mild casualties, with no deaths among the officers." His adjutant-general seemed to listen to the shard in his hand before he added. "The 2nd is in tatters, however. Many of the captains' shards have gone dark."

"And my blademaster, Suzanne?"

"I spoke with her only a minute ago. She grudgingly reports that her men served… 'as expected'." The adjutant-general shrugged at that moment. "She also wished for me to inform you that the Baton of Boram's Point was rather mediocre."

"She  _would_  say that, wouldn't she?" Marcus du Couteau said with an open laugh. Coming from Suzanne di Castellamonte, 'mediocre' was already a compliment.

"Action on the front." The adjutant-general broached.

Marcus turned back to look through his binoculars. Now that the rains had gone, he could see Purvis' banner bobbing up and down like a floundering ship at sea, and then spotted the telltale pattern waving that hinted at some sort of message being broadcasted to his men.

"Is that a recall or an advance?" His adjutant-general remarked. "Should we give chase?"

"A call for regroup I would say." Marcus replied. He lowered his binoculars. "It does not matter; we are not going to fight them any longer. They may keep La Forbie. We should begin marching to rendezvous with Caspian and secure their flank in case of a reprisal."

"I will get the men then." His adjutant-general offered. He was sent away with a nod.

Captain-General Ivar Purvis still held La Forbie, which made the two-day siege a Demacian victory—but Jericho Swain had managed to capture Jarvan IV despite all odds. To Marcus du Couteau, the battle had been a typical exchange in chess: handing over several pieces for one king. Despite the setbacks, everything was still progressing along the planned route. He only hoped that no one would discover the identity of his chess partner.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**  I had to draw a map for this and timed it as best as I could so I do hope it makes sense! Here we have war from a General's point of view, which is admittedly both detailed and yet  _not_.

When we were with Darius we were basically hauling ass from Point A to Point B and getting poked with a stick all the while, but in Marcus du Couteau's perspective, everything is just a matter of telling the Knight to move to E4 and praying the chess piece doesn't break ranks and run away. The human element of war isn't very palpable from a General's point of view but the strategic element is very much felt.

We've been plodding along (imho) so it's refreshing to finally get to a lore anchor point, which is  _that_  point in old lore when Swain routes J4. After this, the young Prince is going to be rescued by Garen (or to be more precise, Marcus Crownguard along with his son). Everything will be as old lore intended, only with this fanfic you know a little bit more on the 'how'.

I'm no chess player, but from what I can glean the term, 'Evans Gambit' is used to describe a more aggressive version of the 'Giuoco Piano'— giving up a White pawn in order to secure the center and to bear down on Black's weak point— which is exactly what Marcus du Couteau does by offering up the 5th Legion to occupy Purvis' time while Jericho Swain went in for J4. It took me longer to find a chapter title than to upload this whole thing oops.

We're also given a bigger picture of just who Marcus du Couteau is in this chapter. I hope I did a fair job of it.

Played with the tenses last chapter but I see that went a bit awry. Anyway! Merry Christmas and have a happy New Year everybody! In a few months the fic will celebrate its 3rd birthday oh wow. I should probably open a bottle of champagne.


	25. Jus In Bello

_It was true: the boy lived._

_He lived for a very long time. The toxins_

_were an oil slick: contaminated, cleaned._

_But just as soon as the women_

_kissed redness back into his cheeks_

_the boy began to die again._

_He continued to die for the rest of_ _his life._

_The dying took place slowly, sweetly._

_The dying took a very long time._

**Snake Oil, Snake Bite (Dilruba Ahmed)**

* * *

**FIVE HOURS LATER…**

Flickering images poured into his consciousness, and if it were not for the fever that was setting his mind aflame Jarvan IV would've been able to tell if all that he was seeing was true or not.

Jarvan IV barely saw anything beyond his arm, and he couldn't properly keep his eyes open. His leg pained him terribly, the exposed bone peeking out of his skin was enough to turn his stomach—and it  _did_ , but he had nothing to expel. He had vomited once or twice before and could hardly remember anything without having his brain rebel against his skull.

It wasn't until a yellow blur of a man did something to him—a little prick not unlike an insect bite, that was all he could feel then— that the captive Prince of the Realm began to feel better. With time and a bit of sleep, he began to look at things more lucidly.

He was in a wagon and it was rocking back and forth with the terrain, and his prison was very small—about four feet by two. The walls and the ceiling were made of iron, with space enough between each bar for a woman to stick her slender arm through. His hands were bound behind his back and they had used a pair of iron handcuffs to do it; he could feel it chafe against his skin. He could feel they bound his ankles with chains too and it hurt because every movement sent waves of pain up his leg. Jarvan needed only to look down in order to see his piteous limb—pale, bruised beyond belief, with a bit of bone breaking through the skin and oozing blood down to his calf.

When he had been newly captured he had been all pluck and fury, and he had spat and cursed at his captors. He had demanded to be set free, or at least to be given better quarters because he was a Prince of the Realm and  _not_  just any captive. The Noxians had ignored him—moreover, they had  _laughed_  at him, and they had poked him through the bars of his cage with the pointed end of their pikes just to see him try to move out of the way.

But he couldn't move very well. He was hobbled, and his leg was useless and broken, and so he had caught the end of a spear more than once. He had no armor on him to soften the blow—the points went straight to his flesh. It was a lucky thing that they had only wanted to goad him like a penned beast, because if they had wished to kill him they could have done it when he had collapsed on the floor of his prison, wheezing and bleeding from superficial cuts. The crying started soon after that, and then the fever had torn at his head and tricked his mind.

Now that the haze had been lifted, he spent the first hour of wakefulness ruminating in the dark and shifting wagon on what had happened to him. He remembered every detail of the battle that had gotten him captured, and he feared the next person he knew would visit his prison.

The Captain-General had called the Dauntless Vanguard towards the rest of the village. Ivar hadn't explained why. The Royal Guard and the Knightly Orders led by the Deputy Grand Master of the Valor Knights had been left with him, and after some coaxing Jarvan had gotten Tobias to let him out of the cottage. And it was fortunate too, because then a bolt of verdant green had struck the building and had set it on fire, and Jarvan had helped to put it out.

He didn't remember what time it was when the Noxians had gotten over the town's walls, but they were there soon after the last timber of what used to be the cottage was doused with water. The Noxians were all lightly armored—he should have realized they were only skirmishers for the rest of the army—and Jarvan had defeated them easily with the Royal Guard and the Knights at his beck and call. He had felt  _alive_ , a being fueled by rage and pain. He loved to see a Noxian at the end of his telescopic spear, and even twisted the haft so that the unlucky soul would cry out as their innards were ripped into shreds.

And then the Noxians had run away from him—him, the Prince of the Realm. He had felt as he did when he had gone hunting in the south. There was prey to find, and he  _wanted_  to go after them. The Royal Guard and the Knights had accepted his command out of duty, and he told them to  _charge_.

Like a braying hound, he had gone out of the town's protective walls, but like a game hare he had fallen into a Noxian trap. Once he had ventured far enough, Noxian cavalry and then heavy infantry formed a wall to cut him off from La Forbie. Then he had been knocked into the mud and trampled. It was unfortunate his armor had kept him whole. If the cavalry had killed him, it would have been a kinder fate, much preferable to his current circumstances.

The Royal Guard and the Knights had been slaughtered, and when the Dauntless Vanguard had arrived to bolster the ailing Demacian forces, the Noxians had fresher troops come to form a screen. The Dauntless Vanguard and the rest of the Knightly Orders had fought tooth and nail to try and get to their Prince, but the Noxians had more men. To make matters worse, when Jarvan had finally managed to stand up, he had been disoriented enough to run into the Noxians instead of the Demacians. From there he had just been pushed and shoved deeper into Noxian lines like some object that no one wished to hold.

By the end of it, the younger Jarvan had found himself bound and taken to the Noxian commander—a man he couldn't recognize very well given the rain and the shroud and hood. All he had been able to see was a cane and a very large raven on the man's shoulder, but the voice that emerged from his mouth was what had thrown him back into the past.

It was Jericho Swain, assassin of the Queen of Demacia. The moment he had realized who the bastard was, Jarvan had launched himself at the man in a rage, but the chains about his wrists had tightened and pulled him back like he was a toy. Nearby soldiers tore at the enchanted armor protecting his leg, and then Swain had gestured off to the side. Someone from the army went forward, and to the army's haggard cheering and Jarvan's pained screams, the brute had beaten savagely away at his leg with a war hammer until the bone had  _showed_.

After that, the Prince of the Realm had been stripped of all dignity—the rest of his armor had been thrown away and his weapon had been disassembled and tossed into the mud. Only wearing his drawers, he had been bound hand and foot, and thrown into the wagon to await his fate.

Up until that moment the prison had been rolling along, and no Noxian thought to bother him. Now the wagon ground to a halt, and soldiers were placing stops on the back of each wooden wheel to stop the prison from rolling away. They looked to be making camp for the night—Jarvan could see them starting to dig trenches, pitching tents and lighting torches.

He sat straighter in his pen, and looked around for someone to talk to. There were soldiers everywhere, but none of them looked as if they were paying any attention to him except for his compulsory guards—one at each corner outside of his agonizing box. The Noxians were talking and joking to each other, smiling and laughing as if all was right in the world. Jarvan felt himself growing angry and indignant—how  _dare_  they be so carefree—when he remembered that these were Noxians in his company, not Demacians, and  _he_  was  _their_  prize.

Dejected, he sat back and tried to wiggle out of his restraints, but they were close and tight against his skin. If he had a means to hack his hands off, he probably  _could_  make an attempt at escape, but then there was still the door of his prison to consider and he was hobbled.

Further inspection yielded a bowl of water within his reach, but he couldn't use his hands or his feet. The only solution was… unspeakable, and he told himself he would rather die from thirst than quench it—he hated even the  _idea_  of it, bending over and drinking from it like a  _dog_. The Noxians would probably laugh at him then.

So he did not drink, even if he felt as if his throat would dry up and turn into ash, and he did not make any attempt towards the bucket in the corner either. He still had his dignity as a Prince of the Realm, and he had no intentions of demeaning himself by pissing or defecating in a  _bucket_ , in full view of the Noxian  _army_.

No, he would die  _first_ , and damn them all for trying to wear away at his dignity.

There was a bit of clamoring close to the entrance of his prison. The gate swung open and shut. Heart racing in trepidation, Jarvan IV craned his head to look. It was the man he both feared and hated to see.

"How's the leg,  _swine_?" Jarvan IV sneered from floor of the cage. In truth he was absolutely beside himself with fright, but he was angry too—the bastard in front of him had killed his mother and had escaped Demacian justice. He had dreamed of the time when he would finally choke the life out of the Noxian in front of him, but this was a terrible reversal of circumstances.

The young Prince had been the one who had tortured  _him_. His southern temper had driven him to maim the Noxian for the rest of his life. There was a private fear stirring in Jarvan's heart now that their places had been exchanged, but he would never admit  _that_  to anyone—not even his own father.

Like the flies that flitted in and out of his cage, Jarvan's insult hung in the air and faded into nothing. Though the Prince's prison was set atop a wagon which creaked and shifted with their movements, Swain kept his balance by leaning onto his cane, observing his captive silently and showing no outward emotion.

It wasn't the silence that unnerved the young Lightshield, it was the way the Noxian carried himself: tall, confident, every inch the winner of the battle. Most of Swain's facial features were obscured by his mage's hood and facial shroud. When the Noxian had been captured three years ago, he had been pale and lithe with dark hair and even darker eyes. What the bastard looked like now, Jarvan could only wonder. He was absolutely certain and terrified about the reddish glint that sometimes surfaced in Swain's gaze—some sort of terrible magic, he was certain.

How else could that  _thing_  have escaped from Demacia's most secure cell?

"I think," Swain reached with the end of his cane. Jarvan tried to squirm away from him despite his brave words earlier, but his hands and feet were bound. He couldn't do anything except hold back a scream as the Noxian ruthlessly pressed the tip of his cane onto where the Prince's leg had snapped. "I should ask  _you_  that question, no?"

The howl of pain made it halfway out of his mouth before Jarvan thought to crush it, clamping his jaws shut and grinding his teeth against each other. The veins of his neck throbbed as his broken limb bayed in total and encompassing pain. He almost choked on his own spit when Swain smashed the side of his cane against Jarvan's leg; upsetting the delicate and previously manageable position Jarvan had put his injured limb in.

"I do not think you heard me  _correctly_ ," Swain's voice was terribly calm, with a certain hungry and longing note at the end of his speech that made him draw out his words slowly. "Let me ask again, how is the  _leg_ , princeling?"

"Go  **fuck**  yourself." Jarvan spat at him. Pink spittle flew from his mouth.

Swain did not even dignify him with an insult. The Noxian only leaned on his cane as he pulled back his working leg and threw his entire weight into a blow that smashed into Jarvan's mauled limb with a force he did not expect the former assassin could bring to bear.

The Prince of Demacia screamed again, long and hard, curling in on himself out of reflex and causing himself further injury when he instinctually struggled against the irons that bit into his wrists and ankles. The pain was so much that he couldn't think and he couldn't breathe. All he could do was cry and pant like a dog.

Pulling back a blood-flecked boot heel, Swain reached up to stroke his dread familiar. The only indication of the Noxian losing his self-control at the Prince's misery were his long and tapering fingers, quivering in delight at Jarvan's hoarse breathing. As if by some hidden message between them, the raven clicked its beak in pleasure and then hopped off its master's shoulder to rest on the floor of the wagon next to the Prince.

Jarvan's eyelids flickered as he drifted in between consciousness and darkness. He would have passed out then—the pain was beyond any training he had received thus far and he could hardly think much less talk—but Swain and his familiar seemed to have a different idea.

"Do keep him awake for the rest of the evening, my dear." Swain said as he turned his back on the Prince of Demacia, fingers tightening on his cane. "We wouldn't want our guest to sleep while we  _labor_  to deliver him to his destination."

The raven cawed in assent, and then began to peck ruthlessly at the Prince's face, avoiding his eyes but tearing into his sensitive nose, ears and lips. Swain left the wagon to the noise of Jarvan's horrified screaming, the faintest creases on the fabric of his shroud hinting at a smile.

More than a hundred miles' ride away, the Captain-General had just finished his report. He stood in front of the aged Jarvan III, clutching at his metal helm and dropping flecks of dried mud onto the carpets that covered the floor of the King's Pavilion. For all his authority as leader of Demacia's army and of the Knightly Orders, Ivar Purvis looked like a desperate highwayman—all haggard, with a hollow and hunted look in his eyes. Given the hard ride and the helmet, his usually well-kept hair now fell over his brow in tangled waves and locks. He had a number of lines around his hazel eyes and the gold had been shot out of his gaze thanks to misery.

Thanks to the siege, the Captain-General had not shaved in two days and the little hairs were starting to show on his cheeks and about his jaw. Normally possessing a strapping and bear-like build, he looked smaller and less of a man; Ivar had not been eating well, and it showed on his sallow skin and looser clothes. His armor did not sit well on him.

Xin Zhao felt disgusted to see him. It was not that his condition was unbearable—he had seen much worse in the Fleshing Arena—but it was because the Captain-General was allowing the incident to affect his judgment and his health. In Xin's honest opinion, there was no point in wallowing and crying about what he  _could_  have done. There was only what they could do at the  _moment_.

It was a pity his sworn lord wanted to do nothing but cry, and all of this negativity was beginning to affect the Captain-General too.

"I am so sorry, laird." The Captain-General said with a worn expression on his face. "I didna ken how I was tricked, I just… I am so very sorry."

In times of high emotion the man's northern accent slipped out more often than he could like, and now he was half-slurring, half-tripping over his own syllables in his exhaustion. Xin Zhao largely couldn't understand him whenever he lapsed and so he hadn't even tried to listen to the man plead before the King.

Jarvan did not reply. Xin Zhao could not blame him for not being able to muster the strength to talk, although he did wish the King would get out of his little wallow soon. They had all expected the Prince to be well taken care of, what with the Captain-General's Knightly Orders, the Royal Guard  _and_  half the Dauntless Vanguard protecting the younger Jarvan. But the Noxians had somehow achieved the improbable, and now the Demacians were paying for their confidence and squirming on the floor like a smashed roach.

"My Keeng," Ivar's voice was cracking at the edges as he tried again. "I have naething else to say, save that I will go where ye need me if ye wish to redeem me. I will take whatever laldie ye give me, and will go to the sword if ye deem it. Ye ken I deserve it."

Xin tried not to think of his voice as grating—it would only vex him even more.

" _How_ ," King Jarvan asked forlornly, as if he had never heard. "How did my boy…"

Ivar Purvis looked to him, and Xin Zhao shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Bound by decorum as it were, the Captain-General could not leave the King's presence without someone saying that he  _could_. As seneschal, Xin Zhao had more influence with the King than both the Captain-General and the Duke of Endurn combined, but very rarely did anyone allow him the  _right_.

For all his loyalty towards the King and his House, he was still nothing but an outsider— a charming pet that Jarvan II had picked up during his rule—and the Demacian royal court did not think very highly of him. He could not easily dismiss Purvis, and besides, the Duke of Endurn had yet to arrive. The seneschal was of the mind to let the northerner blather on a bit longer.

So Xin Zhao did not meet Ivar's gaze. Instead he glanced at his liege lord, and then to the candle that was rapidly burning down into nothing but a pile of molten wax on the empty scribe's table. Soon he would have to change it—it would be the fourth one to fizzle out thus far. Normally changing candles was a task reserved for a steward, but the three of them were alone in the King's tent—Xin Zhao, the Seneschal of the Realm; Ivar Purvis, the Captain General and Jarvan III, the King of Demacia himself. All the guards had been dismissed, and all the proxies and generals had been told to return soon. It was late in the evening now—around eleven o'clock by the seneschal's last reckoning.

Xin Zhao had been with the King since the news had reached them of the Prince's capture five hours ago. The Captain-General had almost killed a horse under him to give his personal report at seven thirty in the evening, and from then on, he had been standing and stuttering through his words repeatedly because King Jarvan couldn't bring himself to dismiss the man—so shocked was he that the only thing he could do was to ask the poor Captain-General over and over why and how his son had been taken.

Every now and then tears would roll down the elder Jarvan's face and Purvis would choke on his own spit or croak as he tried to get around his dry throat. Xin gave his liege lord a new square of cloth to wipe at his face with each and every time, and did not even look at the Captain-General. If the Captain-General had been less of a man he would have left hours ago to find a drink or some sort of respite from being repeatedly interrogated to no clear end—but out of friendship or respect he had decided to stay and to look the fool.

There was a great noise from outside—a loud shuffling of spears and boots with a horse neighing in the distance—and then the Duke of Endurn was there looking visibly ruffled. The Spiritmight pushed the tent flap aside as he pulled off his riding gloves. A bit of a cold draft followed him and made the torches flicker.

Xin Zhao watched him lazily out of the corner of his eye as Maximilian crossed the carpet-littered space and clutched at the King's arm in condolence. It was curious that the Duke, who usually  _was_  the first to arrive whenever something noteworthy occurred, was  _late_.

Xin tightened his grip about his quiang. He didn't like the Spiritmight, and never claimed to hold any affection for him. He thought the man was too  _good_ , if that made any sense at all. He always seemed to know something about  _everything_ , and always had an excuse ready if he was ever asked about  _anything_.

In the seneschal's opinion, Maximilian held the trust of the King by some strange trick and if he had any ounce of magic in his veins he would have tried to see if the Spiritmight had cast a spell on his liege lord somehow. As it was Xin was no mage, and all he could do was to wait for the scum in front of him to trip so that he could catch him with his quiang right in the  _gut_.

"Come now brother," The Duke said lowly. "Come now, there is no need to weep. I am sure he is alive; they would not kill him just yet. At least, I do not think so. There is no need to put Ivar through any more of this."

"How did you lose him?" The King asked again, ignoring his brother-in-law's words.

The Captain-General looked to the newly-arrived Duke of Endurn for confirmation, and as he had not yet heard the man's personal report, the Spiritmight nodded his head. Ivar pitifully clutched at his winged helm, looked down at his muddy boots instead of the elder Jarvan's broken eyes and began again. This was perhaps the sixth or seventh time he had to repeat himself, and Xin Zhao was rapidly running out of patience.

"I keepit him with Laurent's eldest in a cottage— benmaist from the fighting," The Captain-General said miserably to the ground in abject shame as Maximilian continued to mutter to his sister's husband. "The Noxians charged up from the road like a terrible black tide; that was sometime at four in the efternuin. When they poured into the town, I pulled the Dauntless Vanguard to see to the defenses and telt the Royal Guard and the Knights to stay with the wee Prince. In the gurrie, the Noxians managed to draw them out someway. Wasn't until after the survivors found me that they telt me he was gone. I only left him for half an hour or so, laird. I dinna understand how."

The King did not even look at him. It made for a bitterly humorous picture—the Captain-General was unable to look at his liege lord in the eye, and the King of the City of Light could not see past his nose because of his grief. Silence would have reigned but for the Duke's whispers, and at length after waiting politely for the two of them to finish, Ivar looked to the seneschal again. Xin decided to humor him now that the Duke was in the tent, and after granting him a derisive look, the seneschal shifted his gaze from the exhausted man to the Duke of Endurn.

"Yes, thank you, Ivar." Lord Spiritmight's voice held some measure of strength in it. "Now, all of this is quite enough; we will not avail my nephew if we continue to mope about. We must make plans to retrieve him, and quickly."

It was good advice, and it was what Xin Zhao wanted to do since they had received the Captain-General's first report, but the King did not want to do anything but bewail his son's capture and as his vassal Xin Zhao could not tell him to stop. As the King's brother-in-law, however, Spiritmight could.

Maximilian was, in reality, one of two people in the entire world who could pinch King Jarvan on the nose and not suffer any real consequence because of it—the other person was his sister and the King's second wife, Catherine.

King Jarvan looked up at that moment, and Xin Zhao sprang forward to offer him another handkerchief to dry his face when he saw the tears that had run down both the elder Jarvan's wrinkled cheeks.

"Have you returned to us at last, brother?" Lord Spiritmight said slowly and uncertainly. "Would you kindly allow the Captain-General some rest? We will think this through."

"For the moment," King Jarvan finally found the will in him to say something else, but he did not lose his mournful air. "I… I did not expect he would be captured. If we do not act soon, I fear I would need to make arrangements for a funeral."

The King took his seneschal's handkerchief and wiped at his eyes and face. It was very pathetic, and Xin Zhao had to stop himself from dropping a rude comment about the King's father—Jarvan II had been more of a warrior than his son, fighting well into his seventies and keeping an air of bravado about him at all times—but he reasoned to himself that being toxic would not do his lord any service at the moment. Instead he cast his glance to the two other men in the pavilion who looked to be having their own discussion.

"Nae," The Captain-General interrupted; apparently his exhaustion and guilt had eaten away at him enough to damn protocol. In Xin Zhao's mind it was about time—they had  _all_  been standing and plodding for long enough. "Ye need not plan for sic. Only allow me a fresh horse and a waucht to put the heat back in me blood; I will go out again tonight for yer bairn. It was my mistake and I will amend it, aye!"

"Though you are Captain-General, you are not immortal nor are you tireless," The Duke of Endurn said firmly as he walked forward and took the Captain-General by the shoulder. "Dear Purvis, you are  _concerned_ , I understand, and you wish to  _help_ —but there is the army to think of, the dead to retrieve and their parents to write to. You are far more useful where you are. There is no need to go and get yourself killed."

 _No shit_ , Xin thought to himself.

"Ye arna the Keeng." Ivar retorted with a narrowing look at the man in front of him. He shrugged off the Duke's hand and added. "I willna bide all quiet-like while ye fix my wrong. What kind of man would I be if I let others fix my mistakes? I willna be coordly; I will do me duty and go with ye, and if I fall then the gods will judge me for it instead of ye. I would prefer that, if the Keeng will not ask for my awn life."

And  _there_  was the usual puffing. Xin had to stop himself from yawning. Demacians always took their time with words.

"It is very certainly noble of you, to offer your life in exchange for justice, but that rather  _selfish_  decision is not yours to make, Captain-General." The steel behind the Duke of Endurn's tone brooked no argument. All the Head of all Knightly Orders could do was to grudgingly accept. "In the King's stead, that decision is  _mine_ ; I am sure Jarvan would not willingly execute you. You are a friend to him, and to me—and besides you have not yet failed so completely that only death would grant you some measure of respect. There is no need to go to those lengths."

"If  _that_  be the Keeng's will," The Captain-General allowed reluctantly. "I have nae choice."

"Go and rest," The seneschal said; it was the only time Xin Zhao had felt it prudent to speak. "You have done all that you could. We will talk to the King. We will decide, and when the time comes, we will call for you and you will do what is needed. Will  _that_  satisfy the demands of duty and honor that you seek?"

"Aye, it satisfies." The Captain-General said, all too relieved that someone understood what he truly wanted. The King had not dismissed him personally but with the seneschal and the Duke's say-so he felt he could leave without anyone accusing him of cowardice or dereliction of his oaths.

Ivar saluted, but the King did not answer. It was only when the Duke of Endurn returned the salute that the Captain-General felt it within his rights to turn on his heel and leave. Xin turned his glance to Lord Spiritmight, who was currently rubbing the back of his neck and making a face.

"I am sorry for the trouble," Lord Spiritmight said the moment the Captain-General had left the Pavilion. He returned to the King's side and continued. "Had I known he would make a personal report, I would have endeavored to reach your side sooner."

"You certainly did take your time." Xin Zhao said dryly as he stepped away from the entrance of the Pavilion and walked towards the Duke of Endurn. Now was good a time as any, he felt, to conduct an investigation. "It has been hours already."

"I was  _waylaid_." The Duke of Endurn reasoned with an indignant snort. "I found Keiran as I rode up from Mogron. He had a white flag and a complement of Raedsel to watch over him. I asked him what he meant by it, and he told me his father was willing to parley."

It sounded all too convenient for Spiritmight to ride up from Mogron and to encounter Keiran along the way. That would hint at some sort of collaboration or contact between him and the Noxians. This was not the first time Xin found himself nursing his doubts.

"So soon?" The seneschal challenged with a suspicious glare. He did not even try to hide his misgivings as he continued. "It is certainly very convenient  _and_  kind of him."

" _I_ did not make any overture. I can do many things, but I cannot compel a Noxian—even with magic." Maximilian gave a thin smile and a casual shrug of his shoulders—evading the query and looking as if he knew full well he had squirmed past an awkwardly set trap. "In any case, I told him  _I_  had no authority to deal with  _him_ ; some things are purely within the King's province. He said he would find someone who  _did_. I wager he followed me, and that the Captain-General will return in a few moments to tell you there is a Raedsel detachment at the borders of the camp."

 _Wager_ —there was that word again. Xin Zhao found his knuckles turning white as his hands went about the haft of his quiang. He imagined the wood was the Duke's neck, and throttled it angrily as he bit back. "Do you enjoy gambling, Duke? You like to wager often?"

"'Tis well known that I am a betting man; my vices are not some terrible unknown that needs to be pulled from the darkness and picked away at in the light—and if I was not so confident in what I knew, I would say very little of it or not at all." The Spiritmight replied without missing a beat. His brow quirked up but his mouth stayed in a half-smile; if he had noticed Xin Zhao trying to threaten him, he did not make any hint that he knew.

" _That_  is what concerns me." Xin Zhao decided to go ahead and say what had been creeping in his mind. He did not mince words as he pointed his quiang at the Duke of Endurn. "That you know  _much_. And with  _such_  precision; one would think you are  _colluding_."

"As a magistrate  _and_  close student of the law, I will gently remind you that a significant amount of physical or testimonial evidence is required  _before_  issuing a formal accusation. I do not think you hold either. Is it too much to hope that you understand we cannot  _all_  be soldiers?  _Someone_  must do all the  _thinking_." For someone with a spear pointed at his face, Maximilian Spiritmight did not seem very vexed. He had the gall to reach over; taking a hold of the haft just underneath the dyed red horsehair tassels that went before the leaf-shaped blade and pushed it away.

Xin Zhao was all for leaping at the man to dismember him at that point, but the King cleared his throat and every muscle in the seneschal's body ceased to shift at his tone.

"We cannot quarrel at this hour, my dears," Jarvan III said softly, his brows furrowed with disappointment. "My son has need of me and of us all. Did Keiran say anything else?"

Of course, the King saw what was good in everyone, and shared to his seneschal more than once that he liked to think that all his officials got along well enough. Xin was sorry to tell him even back then— reality would not bend even for a King.

Even the lightest touch commanded obedience—Xin Zhao pulled his spear to rest at his side, brought his ferocious gaze away from the Duke and glanced back at his liege, while the Spiritmight coughed and clasped both hands behind his back, bowing his head in recognition of his authority.

"No, brother." The Duke said primly as he brushed some dirt off his coat. "I suspect he will supply more— if we can talk to him tonight."

As Lord Spiritmight predicted—or perhaps arranged— the Captain-General came barreling back into the pavilion, sweat running off him in rivulets. He took a moment to breathe and pull air into his lungs before he said hoarsely. "A rider is holding a white flag at the perimeter, laird, along with Noxian colors. He says his name is Keiran, and he wishes to speak with ye."

Lord Spiritmight gave Xin Zhao a pointed look, and all the seneschal wanted to do was pull him off his feet and beat his face in with his bare fists—but at that moment the King pushed himself out of his chair.

"Then let us not waste time," The King said as he reached out and took Xin's arm, leaning on him heavily and walking slowly. The seneschal made a grunt as he adjusted the man's hold and shifted his weight. "Let us go to see the Darkwill, and to hear what he has to say."

The Captain-General's hand went to his sword. It was a fine, flat broadsword with a cross-hilt in the style of a griffon gripping the blade, and it had seen recent service. Because of his haste to make his report, he had not yet cleaned his sword; the silver of the blade was tarnished, dull and splattered with blood.

"I canna let ye go," Ivar said as he held a wary hand forward to stop the King and the seneschal. He stood before them all at the front of the pavilion's flap and continued. "I wouldna trust him for even a minute, laird. If this is a trap—"

Xin wondered how long his temper would last in the face of all of this foolishness. Why couldn't they all just get out of the tent without any further arguments? Why did they have to talk and make a great show of everything?  _Demacians_.

"You refuse the King of Demacia?" The Duke of Endurn barked irritably. "Insubordination!"

"Wouldna anyone?" The Captain-General returned guardedly. "Our laird is not thinking clearly from grief. They already have the wee Prince; if they have the Keeng then we will be all but finished."

"The lad will not talk to anyone else  _but_  the King; we have no choice in this matter." The Duke of Endurn snapped with a tone he reserved for schoolchildren. "He will  _not_  be alone; there will be no trickery afoot, not with Demacia's  _finest_  with him."

Seemingly aware that there was nothing to be won with the Duke, the Captain-General turned to look at the Seneschal of the Realm, imploring. "Ye see as I do, will ye not stop this madness?"

Xin Zhao gave him a blank stare—wouldn't his actions have already spoken for him? Why was it that everyone in Demacia needed a verbal affirmation of whatever it was they intended to do? He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and did not move, even at the King's quiet urging. He did not need to speak to show how much he hated the idea of meeting Keiran Darkwill. The Captain-General let go a visible sigh of relief, and removed his hand from his cross-hilt.

"By the gods, sirs, the  _succession_  is at stake here—" Lord Spiritmight barked at once. "You will not—"

The King raised his hand, and at once the Duke of Endurn fell silent. Jarvan III's speech was slow and pained. He kept his gaze to the Captain-General, and squeezed Xin Zhao's arm briefly—almost as if he was trying to remind him to be patient. "I am father to a nation, and I have always done what is right by them. I will not order you to stand aside, Ivar, but I will simply ask this: will you allow a father to do right by his only son?"

The Captain-General swallowed nervously. Xin didn't envy him the choice. Ivar had already lost the Prince of the Realm. If the  _King_  was filched under his nose, he knew he couldn't possibly bear the shame—and the tip of Xin's quiang. It didn't take long for the man to decide, of which Xin was eternally grateful.

"If ye be fixed on going, then I will go too." He said as the King nodded his head and began his slow walk to the flap of the pavilion. The Captain-General held it to one side as he continued darkly. "And if Keiran proves himself to be Noxian through and through, I will die first and that would be the end of it."

 _Yes,_  Xin thought to himself as he helped the King along.  _You first, then the bastard Duke._

As with all things Demacian there was a certain protocol to having the King ride out. King Jarvan had been raised to know all of it like the back of his hand, and now it was all second nature to him.

First scribes had been told to send a message back to the Council to let them know that the Head of State was going to parley with the Noxians through Keiran Darkwill, and then the King stood meekly as Xin Zhao, the Captain-General  _and_  his steward helped him put on his ancestral armor complete with the white ermine cloak and crowned helm of his office.

He was forced to wait while the rest of the riding party suited up and was inspected—even having their saddlebags turned inside out under the Captain-General's watchful eye. Once everyone was approved of, the King then waited for his  _horse_  to be inspected and given its full suit of armor as the King's banners were unfurled and handed out to soldiers who seemed to have earned the right to hold onto his colors.

When all of that was done, only then did King Jarvan go up the steps that led to his horse—and he  _did_  have steps. They were the sort of things children who were too short to mount horses used, because his armor had weighed him down too much to make mounting from the ground easy.

He sat in the saddle, the little stairs were taken away and Xin Zhao was the one to tuck his feet into the stirrups because it was well within his rights as seneschal to do so—and of course no one else was allowed to tuck the King's royal feet into the royal stirrups except for the Master of the Horse.

King Jarvan had once questioned all of this protocol and decorum, but that was when he had been a child and he had been very impatient for things to happen. He was forty-nine now and was not old by any means, but given the war and the fact that his son had just been captured he felt as if he was aged to sixty.

When everyone was saddled up and all the banners were checked so that they would be flowing in the right direction, the Captain-General blew his silver trumpet so that they could all ride out.

There was a hill of respectable size outside the Demacian picket close to the Howling Marsh, and that was where the Royal Circle and the rest of its entourage rode out to meet Keiran Darkwill. The Noxian had been kind enough to mark his position with torches, and signaled using a lantern so that they would be seen through the dark. The Captain-General asked a sentry to signal parley before they rode out, and it was only when Keiran signaled back with an affirmative that the retinue left the relative safety of the barricade.

The King of Demacia never travelled alone—with him was the Captain-General, the seneschal and the Duke of Endurn, along with two thousand of the best that the Dauntless Vanguard had to offer. Compared to them, the Noxians were grossly underprepared.

They found Keiran Darkwill sitting sedately underneath the lit tent, brushing away flies with the frequency of a drowsy horse in a field and playing with a little field mouse. There were four other camp chairs opposite the table, which had a tea set on top of it and some cakes in addition to a field lantern. With him were ten Raedsel—seventy men short of an infantry company. It was a token force and, King Jarvan felt that it was indicative of Boram's fondness for his sons.

How many Darkwills had been born, after all? He had lost count a long time ago; the only names that came to mind were Draythe, Raschallion and Keiran— and he had not seen the second born son in a very long time. He found himself wondering what had happened to the boy.

His people did not kill Raschallion, King Jarvan was sure of that. If any Demacian had done the deed, there was no doubt in his mind that they would have celebrated the murder; much like slaying a dragon. It made King Jarvan very sad to think that his people would do such a thing, but he knew in his heart that they  _would_. They didn't see Noxians as anything else, but King Jarvan felt that  _everyone_  deserved to be treated like people, even if they did nasty things.

When the Dauntless Vanguard had made their protective circle, the little stairs were brought out again and King Jarvan heavily maneuvered down the three steps to the ground. The Captain-General undid his ermine cloak, which was nice because it was beginning to be stuffy and heavy, and handed it off to a nearby steward. King Jarvan reached out to hold Xin Zhao by the arm, and kept the Ionian close not because he was ailing but because he did not want his seneschal to throw the first punch. It was always best to be polite.

Keiran Darkwill put the field mouse on the ground and rose from his seat when he saw them, giving an acknowledging nod when the King lifted his hand in greeting. The Raedsel by him were tense and it showed in the way they gripped their weapons and stared every which way, but the young captain was not at all perturbed in the presence of Demacia's Royal Circle—Boram's youngest was only looking at them with a small thin smile.

Instead of the evocative green and gold armored robes that were within the Darkwill family's right to wear, he wore a simple set of worn dark leathers covered here and there by pieces of dented and scuffed black armor. He wore what looked to be two brass symbols in the shape of yew leaves over his left vambrace. Over all of that was a faded dark green cloak.

He had a sharp face like the rest of Boram's brood, but as his ebony hair fell to his ears he did not look as severe as his elder brother, Draythe. His weapon was not on his person—Keiran had set his broadsword against a tent pole. It had no sheathe because it was a useless endeavor to give it one, being of the long and slender persuasion; it was about as thick as an arm but no more than that. The black iron blade shone with its own ill light thanks to the runes that crept on it.

As part of his duty, the Captain-General went before the King. He had gotten a hold of himself again, and his wild accent was nowhere to be heard when he coughed to clear his throat, and then announced. "I present His Majesty King Jarvan the Third of the House of Lightshield; by the Grace of the Light, Defender of the Righteous, Guardian of Penitents, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of Justice, Sworn Enemy of Injustice—"

"I am sure we are  _all_  aware of who I am, Ivar." King Jarvan interrupted good-naturedly as he patted the Captain-General's arm on his way to his seat. He did not like being puffed up, and did not enjoy being announced  _all_  the time. It certainly killed any attempt at surprises.

"—and Father of Jarvan the Fourth, Prince of the Realm." The Captain-General finished awkwardly. He looked at the assembled Noxians and, with his hand on his cross-hilt, said peevishly. "You will  _all_  kneel before the King."

"As a Darkwill, I will kneel only when he becomes my liege lord or my leash, and my men echo my sentiment." Keiran said with a simple bow. It was low enough to be respectful but he did not completely tear his gaze away from the assembled lords at present. "However, I will not return good graces with bad manners. Good evening, Your Majesty. I am Captain Keiran Darkwill, of the Eternal's Own. Would you like some tea while we hold the talks?"

"Good evening to you, captain. I am afraid I must decline the offer. I am here to talk after all." The King said politely as he settled into his chair. The Duke of Endurn followed suit, whereas the Captain-General and the seneschal did not. Jarvan almost sighed—some people simply could not be courteous.

"I will admit, when I said I wished to give a message to the King," Keiran Darkwill began as he resumed his seat and folded his hands atop his lap. He studied them all for a moment with his bright eyes before he added. "Perhaps I ought to have said ' _any_  Demacian can do in his stead'—there are an uncomfortable lot of you."

"Insolent cur—" Ivar barked, but at that moment the Duke of Endurn turned in his chair to glare at the Captain-General. Keiran reached up to hide his smile underneath his glove for a brief moment before he looked to the King.

King Jarvan could only smile and wave his hand. He was actually very tense and anxious for his son, but he could not show such a thing with his people watching, even if it was just the Dauntless Vanguard. His retinue was already teetering on a knife-edge; if he showed his distress in any way they would pick up on it, and then they would use his show of emotion to justify their own actions. It was bad enough to break in front of his inner circle. He would not do such a thing in front of his troops.

"Do go on, lad." The King said with kindness born from a lifelong habit of politely asking for what he wanted. "You mentioned a message for my eyes alone?"

"Yes, your Majesty," Keiran said formally. He offered a hand and a Raedsel went forward with his traveling pack. "It is from my father, Boram Darkwill, and was written only an hour ago. You will find the seal has not been broken."

The captain dug into the pack and drew out a rumpled envelope, the black symbol on the wax was a screaming skull atop a bed of bones—Boram's seal of office. He offered this to the King, and the seneschal reached over the King's shoulder to take it in his stead. This was all part of protocol, of course.

If the letter was enchanted to explode upon opening then Xin Zhao would be the one to take the blast. As expected, the seneschal walked a fair distance away from his liege lord before he opened the letter, and when he saw that there was nothing to fear he decided to read the contents.

Whatever he read must have scared him. Other people would take the man's expression to mean that he was angry, but the Ionian had been in his House's service for a long time and King Jarvan knew that whenever Xin was scared he would instead get livid with rage—from the look on his face, the letter had frightened the life out of dear Xin.

For his part, Keiran was simply staying quiet. He had poured himself a cup of tea since no one looked to be indulging themselves, and was currently blowing at it daintily to make it cool enough to drink.

"It is as my father said," Keiran replied calmly at the Captain-General's questioning gaze. "He said you would not even let the King the first  _look_ , and that you would coddle him incessantly now that his son is in Noxian custody. I see he was not wrong."

The Captain-General glared at him as the seneschal passed the letter on to his liege lord, and both the Duke of Endurn and the Captain-General craned their heads to read it as the King took it in his hands. Keiran Darkwill sipped at his tea in the silence that followed.

It was written in the Grand General's elaborate script and Jarvan had seen enough of his personal correspondence to know that it was indeed written by Boram Darkwill. Boram had a tendency to write in cursive, and liked to place the slant for his letter t's atop the shaft instead of through it. He also liked to write his letters close to each other, so that the end result seemed like a giant mass of twirls and twists. It certainly made for hard reading.

Fortunately and unfortunately, Boram did not seem to have written much; it merely said ' _I will speak to you in a moment, and personally_ '.

If he had been tense before, he was extremely worried now—King Jarvan had thought he would only talk to Keiran, but apparently the Grand General had other plans. He wondered what Boram wanted to speak to him about. They had previously only discussed the Institute Accord in person, and that meeting was a good fifteen or so years ago. For Boram to ask to see him now, and  _personally_ , meant that there was something that the Grand General wanted from him that no one else needed to know.

The talk for terms had turned into a clandestine meeting—one that Jarvan had a disadvantage coming into. His son was Boram's bargaining chip for whatever the man intended today.

"He will come here? Now?" The King looked up in bafflement as he folded the letter in his hands. He had not seen any sign of Boram so far. Exactly as King Jarvan had feared; the Captain-General reacted to his show of uncertainty. Ivar raised a fist and the Dauntless Vanguard hefted their weapons warily. Lord Spiritmight sat a little straighter in his chair, golden mist gathering about his fingers and glimmering in his eyes as he glanced every which way. Xin Zhao practically pointed his spear at Keiran Darkwill, who looked up from his cup of tea and tilted his head in mild amusement.

"There is no need to be so cautious, even my father would not violate the rules of parley." The captain said with a scoff. There was a dreadful noise behind the ranks of the Raedsel—like a man screaming his throat into nothing but distorted through a bottle or perhaps a shell. "Ah, here he comes now."

Keiran sipped his tea as he kept his head cocked to one side, listening as the disconcerting sound reached a horrid pitch and wound down to nothing, sending tendrils of fear into the hearts of the assembled Demacians. An eerie silence followed, broken only by Keiran placing his tea cup on the table and clapping his hands together, making the entire Demacian retinue jump in shock.

"It is an irony but I must remind you that there is your little Institute to consider." Keiran said as he got out of his chair. Giving a knowing smile at the tense Demacians about him, he added. "It would be rude to slap you in the face if the both of you already agreed to avoid further…  _spats_. You have nothing to fear from Father."

As the ranks of the Raedsel parted, Keiran Darkwill gave an elegant curtsey and gestured towards a man striding towards them. "I present Grand General Boram Darkwill, who needs no further introduction in this company."

The man, if he was indeed the Grand General, did not look at all like his sons. Lean with a sinewy frame, he had faded blue eyes and thinning blonde hair. He did not look to be older than sixty, with drooping jowls and a bent nose. There was a faint green glimmer in his eyes, and every now and then if the flickering torch lights allowed, he could see the man's veins pulsing against his skin. He was clad in quilted green robes, the borders of which were in black satin. The only thing that struck him as odd was the way he carried himself—assured and not at all burdened by age.

King Jarvan  _knew_  what Boram Darkwill looked like, or at least he thought he  _did_. The man he had spoken to fifteen years ago to arrange the Institute Accord was barely any taller or broader than he was, with the same angular features as his sons and a fondness for a clean shaven face. He also remembered Boram having long, braided hair the color of coal dust with thick but well-kept eyebrows and bright green eyes that were unusually  _alive_. Jarvan didn't know how to describe it, but it was an eerie sort of energy that made it seem as if the Grand General's pupils had been  _vibrating_.

The King didn't know what Boram did to give him such a look—it probably involved magic and a myriad of other things he had no desire to know—but whatever it was gave him a very intimidating stare, to be sure. Boram also had a very firm handshake, which the King remembered because the Grand General had nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. If the Eternal General had wanted to do such a thing, perhaps he could have.

The man in front of him looked nothing like he remembered, so the King Jarvan looked to Keiran in bemusement as the young Darkwill offered the new arrival his seat. Not to leave the captain standing, a Raedsel unfolded a new camp chair for Boram's youngest.

"You will pardon me, Grand General, but I do not remember your face to be so—" The King tried to think of a courteous word that would suffice as the Grand General took his seat, but Xin Zhao interrupted him at once.

"You are  **not**  Boram Darkwill." The former captive of the Fleshing Arena said. The King resisted the urge to sigh. Of course, Xin would know what Boram looked like, what with all the time he spent in the Fleshing Arena. He only hoped his seneschal wouldn't be rude enough to stick the Grand General in the gut with his spear. He didn't need any more leverage for Boram to use.

"Is it too much to think that you here to return my property too, King? Viscero's fans  _do_  miss him. I would appreciate his return."

The voice that emerged from the man's mouth was  _exactly_  what King Jarvan remembered—grinding like there were rocks lodged in his throat next to nails and what else but  _not_  painful to hear, coupled with enunciated tones that hinted at a higher education and time spent in the company of aristocrats. It was like having his ears rubbed with sandpaper in a  _pleasant_  way, if such a thing was possible at all.

Xin Zhao drew back in shock the moment the Noxian finished talking. He looked to be remembering something painful, but that passed quickly in favor of revulsion and astonishment. "How did you… Of course, you are  _in_  him."

The King raised a hand to gently pat the seneschal on the arm, and for once the Ionian shied away from him, quivering in disgust and gods knew what else. Jarvan had never asked him about those years in the Fleshing Arena, and Xin Zhao had never seen fit to tell him anything. It was an unspoken arrangement between them that horrible things indeed occurred and that it would not be talked about unless Xin wanted to. It had been close to nine years since Xin had sworn fealty to House Lightshield. Neither of them had broached the topic. For Xin to recoil from him was a first—having a sheltered childhood and a relatively mundane military career the King could only imagine what sort of horrors Xin Zhao faced in the arena.

"Grand General," King Jarvan said very pointedly as he verbally ran to defend his seneschal. It was time to start their little dance. "I am here to talk about my  _son_ ; my seneschal is not the subject of our conversation."

Boram laughed as his son passed him a filled cup of tea. He blew on it for a moment and held it to his lips, saying offhandedly. "Ah, yes. Of course; we are here to talk of young Jarvan. What number is it now? I can hardly remember."

"He is the fourth of his name." The King reminded him primly. The insulting lapse in memory did not fool him at all. They both knew what they were here for, but first they needed to measure each other up and to see who would fold first.

"He looks nothing like you." Boram said in between tentative sips at his cup; no doubt playing with his love for his son, and his House.

"In your current form, your sons do not look anything like you either." The King returned his insult in kind.

"Quite." Boram bared all his teeth in a smile. On his current vessel they shone brown and grubby in the torchlight. "Well, you do not seem to be in a playful mood; I am willing to parley."

"My son must be returned alive  _and_  unharmed, as soon as possible." The King said. Boram had folded rather quickly. It was a cause for concern. A man like him wouldn't easily  _bend_ —unless that was what he  _wanted_  to do. He found himself becoming all the more worried for what Boram's eventual terms would be.

"I am not certain for the latter part of your stipulation." The Grand General shrugged his shoulders helplessly, giving the King an innocent look that did not sit well at all on his aged, drooping and borrowed face. "Young men these days get into all sorts of harm, and sometimes they are denied care."

King Jarvan found himself leaning forward despite himself. The threat was not lost on him—Boram meant to absolve himself of blame. Perhaps his son  _had been_  abused, as he had feared. Maximilian reached over to give him a slight squeeze on the forearm to remind him, and he settled back into his chair with a grudging air. "Do you mean to tell me you have  _mistreated_  him? In  _your_  custody?"

"King, I have been fighting  _you_  all this time. How can he possibly be in  _my_  custody?" Boram's vessel said as he held a hand over his heart in mock hurt, his voice suddenly becoming harsh and unbearable to the King's ears. "I  _can_  however, arrange him to be transferred. But I cannot guarantee anything.  _I_  prefer to keep them alive but  _Demacians_  in captivity have a tendency of throwing away their personal safety in order to escape. It never ends well, as you can imagine."

He was lying, the King was sure of it. If he could do this body-stealing magic on this poor man in front of him, there was no doubt in his mind that Boram could have been there too when they took the Prince. The King gritted his teeth and narrowed his gaze at the man across him as the Captain-General and the Duke of Endurn visibly balked at the Grand General's words.

"Are you  _threatening_  to harm my son, Grand General?" The King asked in a low and livid tone.

" _I_ would not dream of such…  _incivility_. I am Grand General but a  _man_  moves  _himself_." The Grand General interrupted him as he held up both hands in surrender. It was almost an admission that he was deliberately turning a blind eye to whatever ill treatment his men were doing.

"If even  _one_  hair on his head is  _bent_  in the  _wrong_  way, I—" The King nearly sprang out of his chair in rage, but Xin Zhao was the one to hold him back this time with a hand on his shoulder and a firm grip.

"That is a thought, King, what  _would_  you do?" Boram Darkwill broached calmly as he leaned forward and looked at the King eye to eye. He smiled lazily at him as he continued. "Would you  _kill_  me? Launch a  _thousand_  ships against me? Stick Keiran's head on a pike? What  _haven't_  we done to each other in the past thirty or so years? Do be foolish and tell me."

With a falling heart, Jarvan realized he had been caught in a trap and he did not know what it was to begin with. Boram knew he valued his son too much, and now he would answer for it when they finally came to the true talks. The King shuddered for a moment as he contained himself.

"Your terms, Grand General." King Jarvan said. It was best to finish it all, before he gave anything else away. "I will have your terms and by the Light I will have them  **now**."

The Grand General chuckled and leaned back. " _My_  terms," He said—and the emphasis was not lost on the King at all— as he drummed his fingers on the armrest of his camp chair and made a show of thinking very carefully about them. "One Prince, alive and unharmed, you say? I would like to have Viscero back."

Xin Zhao stared at the King in plain alarm, but the King knew—if the Grand General had wanted Xin Zhao he would have made more implications toward  _that_  outcome. No, Boram wanted something else, and he was only playing with him. Drawing him out, and wearing away at his temper.

"I will not accept those terms, Grand General." The King said firmly. He was no fool. "My seneschal is not some object to be exchanged. He is a  _person_ , and  _he_  decides where  _he_  wishes to be."

"Oh, fair enough." The Grand General said with a bored look—having been caught, he seemed to have lost interest in that particular mouse as fast as he had obtained it in the first place. "You and your civil rights."

"What would you ask of me?" The King offered again. He hoped Boram would not play any more of his games.

"I would say 'your life' but I did that to your great-grandfather already." Boram tapped on his chin as he appraised his choices. The Grand General had him trapped and he was taking his time dissecting his quarry. "And the King before him too—was it a Dunwall or a Berell, I can never be sure… How about Crownguard's daughter? I hear she has magic in her veins."

"People are  _not_  objects, Grand General." The Lightshield patriarch reiterated. "I will not repeat myself."

"We  _were_  talking about your son as if he was, were we not?" Boram smiled at him again; another assertion of his authority and control of the talks.

Behind him he could hear the Captain-General stir; a metallic clink meant that Ivar had just placed his hand on his cross-hilt. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Duke of Endurn tapping his fingers on the armrest of his camp chair. Barely a minute passed and he knew what the man was spelling with each jab at the wood; it was the word no. The King did not need to turn his head to know what Xin Zhao was doing. No doubt he was gripping on his spear haft and reminding himself of his oaths.

" _Your terms_." Jarvan pressed on. He gave Boram a pointed look, and for once the other man seemed to  _listen_.

"Dismiss your hounds, and I will do the same with mine. Then we may talk with  _purpose_." Boram turned to look at his youngest son. Up until that point, Keiran Darkwill had been enjoying his tea in quiet, and had been eyeing them all as if they were circus performers. But at his father's look, he rose from his chair and left the tent with his cup. There was no sign of rebellion; he was content to leave and to not know.

The King instantly turned to look at his retinue. The Captain-General looked back at him with barely withheld fear— for himself and for the King, but mostly for himself. Xin Zhao looked as if he would sooner consume a cactus than leave the King alone with Boram for even a minute. Only the Duke of Endurn understood; he was the first to pat the King's shoulder and leave.

"Captain-General." The King reminded gently. Ivar opened his mouth to object before he remembered his duty. Shamefaced, he saluted, turned on his heel and left.

The King looked to Xin Zhao now, and the seneschal did not even look at him. Perhaps if he kept his gaze to the ground he would not be seen. It was a childish thought. King Jarvan turned in his chair, reached out and gave the seneschal an affectionate squeeze on the arm. "I must do this alone."

"Perhaps I can stay," Xin Zhao said quietly, but Boram heard them talk. The Grand General leaned back and laughed.

"If you intend to go  _home_  to Noxus, then by all means  _stay_." Boram barked. "Your cage is still there—more bloodied, of course, but it is still there  _and_  waiting for you."

His message and tone were not lost on the King, and it seemed that even Xin understood. The seneschal's grip tightened about his spear, and for a moment the King was afraid he would throw it straight at Boram's face. But he  _did_  move, and with a sulking look at his liege lord he left.

"It is nauseatingly  _adorable_ ," Boram said offhandedly as he watched the King's closest advisors leave. He looked to almost be envious, but that could just be a trick of the light. "How  _concerned_  they are for  _you_. One must wonder how much of it stems from duty."

"As much as is needed; the rest is pure affection," The King replied as he leaned forward to give the Eternal General his full attention. "We are alone now, Boram. You may give your terms as you will."

The Eternal General lifted a hand and they were enveloped in a delicate green mesh that almost melted into the night but for a few places it glimmered in the lantern light. The King stared around him and then at the Grand General questioningly.

"A mute for the outside world; we are truly alone now. As for terms, Jarvan, I want nothing but quiet from you." Boram steepled his fingers together and studied him closely.

"Excuse me?" King Jarvan blinked and looked at him in surprise. He had expected to sacrifice some virgins, to hand him a town or to abandon a particularly important fortification, but this? He hadn't expected  _this_  at all. What did Boram mean by  _quiet_?

"All the land close to, and south of the Great Barrier." Boram explained as he waved a gnarled hand. He still was looking at the King very intently, as if his strange gaze could compel the King to agree. "As well as to the north, in the Freljord and that bunch of islands they call Ionia. Demacia is not to intervene in Noxian matters there for the next  _thirty_  years."

Thirty years was a long time to remain indifferent, particularly if it involved Noxians. Despite himself the King found his normally easy temper deserting him, and he leered at Boram Darkwill with unadulterated skepticism.

"What are you  _planning,_  Boram?" The King asked warily. "We have signed the Accord already. We swore to decrease our military presence together; you cannot possibly wage  _open_  war—"

"Not on  _city-states_ ," Boram replied, and he took care to say his next words carefully and so lowly that the King had to strain himself to hear past the rocks in the Eternal General's voice. "These places I have mentioned have  _not_  signed into our Accord. I would not dream of  _inciting_  your oh-so-righteous anger and breaking  _our_  peace, Jarvan. I will simply be…  _taming_  the wilderness, as you do."

The King had to stop himself from laughing. As it was, he shook his head and stared at the Eternal General in disbelief. "Do you expect me to believe  _that_? Boram, even if they have not signed into our Accord, they are still  _people_  and they are  _free_  to choose if they wish to join or not. You cannot simply smash their faces against the Institute's walls and tell them to become one of us."

"You mistake my intentions, Jarvan." Boram said with all his teeth. "I will not be there to make those uncivilized mongrels join our fold. I will be there to give  _my_  people something to  _live_  for now that they cannot wage open war."

"For your  _people_ ," King Jarvan repeated with an incredulous look that shifted into open suspicion. "Or for your  _own_   _sake_? Boram—"

"That is what  _you_  do, isn't it?" Boram inquired. "You run into the wild and demand the inhabitants to  _bow_  to order  _and_  civilization? Well,  _we_  can do the same—only we need no foolish morals to hide behind. We will bring backward places into the modern age—uplift  _them_  into these new times, as it were."

He did not answer the King's question at all, and that avoidance only set alarm bells ringing in the King's mind. Perhaps Boram was trying to admit something that even he did not want to acknowledge. Whatever was happening in Noxus now that could make Boram Darkwill  _afraid_? The King found himself leaning backward in his chair. It was time to draw it out, whatever it was.

"By force!" The King exclaimed as he pretended to be more zealous than he truly was. "That is not fair or kind at all; the duty of Demacia is to  _uphold_  order. We form  _alliances_  and take  _all_  under our  _protection_ , we do not raze villages to the ground when its people do not answer us with a  _yes_ —"

"Noxians are a  _warrior_  people, Jarvan. What will the animals do when there is no more war to wage?" Boram interrupted him, and as he continued to speak it suddenly made sense to the King why Boram did not want to say anything about it at all. "Why, they breed, become indolent, violent  _and_  bored enough to do horrible things. That is a rather atrocious combination isn't it? I would prefer to keep my people as  _people_."

Boram Darkwill, Eternal General of Noxus, was  _afraid_  of his own people. It was unsurprising and utterly fascinating at the same time. He had always suspected that even Noxians held no great love for Boram Darkwill, but to hear the barest whisper of it from the Grand General himself confirmed everything he had thought.

"Are you suggesting you cannot control your pit of vipers, Boram?" King Jarvan could only imagine how bad it was in the capital if  _Boram Darkwill_  was here and asking him to turn his head for the next thirty years. Now that Boram had hinted to it, he felt it safe to ask about it straightaway. "What have you  _done_  to them now?"

"Nothing above the ordinary; I still have  _them_." Boram said casually. By that the King supposed he hadn't murdered more than twelve people in a day. "And I  _will_  retain my hold over them, but only for as long as the vipers have something else to snap at—and that is why I am asking you to turn your righteous gaze."

The message was not lost on the King. If he did not agree to Boram's terms, the Grand General would most likely have an  _accident_ , and in doing so he would let slip all his hounds of war. As frighteningly immoral Boram was, at least he honored  _courtesy_  and the two of them had been bickering long enough to know precisely what each other needed.

But if he  _did_  agree to Boram's terms, what would it accomplish? He would only be enabling the Grand General to carry on his absurd regime, and if Boram was trounced all the same, then his agreement to turn his head would come to nothing, and the blood of innocents would be on his hands for the rest of his life. He would never be able to look at himself in the mirror again and he would be no better than the creature opposite him. He would be the golden king sitting atop a black foundation, and secrets always would out.

"I cannot let you kill innocents, Boram. Even if it is, as you say, for  _your_  people." The King gave him a look. He knew full well Boram was playing him, and he did not like it at all—but that was the very nature of political talks. No one ever truly said what they needed out loud, unless they were truly desperate. "I can  _allow_  you to…  _take_  settlements under your  _protection_ , and to drive out  _offending_  elements that would seek to  _upset_  the Institute's regime, but I  **cannot**  allow you to go against innocents."

"What is the real meaning of that word— _innocents_?" Boram said with a sneer and a dismissive wave of his hand. "No one is  _truly_  innocent; even  _babies_  can become the products of a crime and then  _they_  would be stained for the rest of their pitiful lives. You know what I  _require_. I suggest you  _give_  it to me."

"So you can inflict untold misery unto  _others_ , on the premise that it would keep your  _people_  sane." The King said with a growl. He did not want to turn his head for thirty years. That was too long to remain willingly blind. "Or do you mean to tell me that  _you_  want to keep  _yourself_  glutted? You would slaughter all in your way and pillage them for what they were worth, too; I cannot be the enabler of your homicidal wants, Boram. I will not have it."

"You insult me, Jarvan. And here I thought we were good friends; I am no animal, and I am capable of controlling myself  _and_  the scum of the earth. I only require the means to do so." The Grand General said with a tone that did not sound friendly at all. "For what is the purpose of our Accord, if you will not grant me a method by which to keep the peace? Would you damn the souls of over a million Noxians into the Void and wash your hands of it?"

" _You_  would," The King said without taking the time to think of it; it just seemed very obvious to him. " _You_  would damn them  _all_ , Boram. I would not be the cause of their deaths and I know my people would not feel sorry at all if your city-state was wiped from the earth through its own fault."

"And so we see your true quality, King of Demacia." Boram said spitefully as he gestured towards the elder Jarvan—as if to say that the Demacian's words confirmed all that he had thought of him. "You preach mercy, love and acceptance but you would willingly damn the rest of us to the Void for embracing what we  _truly_  are. Think Jarvan: do you have it in yourself to kill your only son to keep your virtue?"

The King took his hand to his mouth and thought of it. Jarvan IV was his mother's son through and through, and the King did not want to lose the last memory of his dear Elaine. He had lost her to a Noxian bolt and he had asked Boram all those years ago if it was  _his_  work. Boram hadn't confirmed his involvement as was his custom, but he  _had_  said the assassin was theirs to kill and to maim, if they so wanted. The little bastard had escaped before they could hang him.

If the King did not agree to his terms, then his son would die and he would not have  _Boram_  to talk to in the future—it would be someone else, and the King knew too little of Noxus' current political landscape to be comfortable with the idea. He  _knew_  Boram. He did not know who would  _replace_  him. It was within his interests to  _not_  do anything that would change Noxus' political climate—whatever it was at the moment with Boram at the head.

All he wanted was for his son to come home, and the only way Jarvan IV could return was for the King to stand in a river of blood and to look the other way. Boram had him by the balls with the threat on his son, and he had the Grand General by the neck with his say-so. It was an impasse that had to be forded as soon as possible if he wanted to see his firstborn again.

"I do not have all the time in the world, Jarvan." The Grand General reminded him. As he inspected his vessel's nails he added in a low and appalled voice. "Disgusting; does this man need a trim…"

" _Five_  years," The King offered at last. Thirty, he thought, was too much and too long. Even if he had the support and love of his people, they would not sit idly by as Boram slaughtered thousands. He would bear the shame, if it meant that his son would have a chance of surviving beyond tonight. "And if there is but  _one_  piece of evidence that will cause Demacia to take up arms, you will neither refuse nor obstruct our intermediation."

"I have  _generations_  to keep entertained, Jarvan. I cannot do with five." The Grand General drawled, and his next words surprised the King enough to make him stare at the man in veiled shock. "Now, either you consign your child to his deserved doom, or you agree to keep your righteous nose out of my affairs for the next  _twenty_  years."

Twenty now, from thirty—Boram Darkwill was  _bargaining_. Now this was a  _first_. It felt strange to have the upper hand in their dealings.

" _Five_ ; that is all I may grant you." The King said firmly as he pointed a finger at the Eternal General. He wanted to see how far he could go. "And in that span of time, I am  _not_  responsible for actions personally undertaken by those of my nation."

"And  _I_  am not responsible for whatever  _my_  people would do to  _your_  son under their  _own_  power while  _you_  hop from one foot to the other." Boram returned with equal insistence. "Come now, Jarvan, give me what I need and let us be done with this."

"I cannot decide this now," The King said with marked hesitation, even if he was ready to agree to twenty. "An agreement of this magnitude needs to be mulled over for longer than ten minutes. I am sure you understand."

Boram had patience when he felt it would be worth his while, and judging from the degree of anxiety he was putting across, he was impatient to have a deal done. A desperate Boram made Jarvan wonder what exactly it was that had the Eternal General so afraid, and he wanted to keep on prodding to see how far Boram would go to have his nod.

"Your  _son_  has as much time as there is heat left in the kettle." The Grand General repeated his threat, and a twinge of guilt struck the King in the heart. "Are you  _really_  going to discuss this with your  _little_  circle of friends? What do you think they would say? They are honor bound to agree with you no matter what it is because you are  _King_  and there is very little your Council can do to stop you. If they refuse you, then they may as well help me throttle your son to death."

"Unlike you, I cannot keep all of them out of this, Boram." The King said instead, and it was then that it seemed something snapped in the Grand General's eyes before he got a hold of himself a millisecond later. "I will have to tell them, but I will keep your reasons to myself. I will think on your terms, and I will give you my answer within the next two hours. That is all I can say on the matter."

"Then we have no agreement until then, and your son's fate will be in the wind along with your answer." Boram leaned back into his chair, his right hand drumming impatiently on the armrest as his left dissolved the field about them. He looked to be studying the King carefully as he added darkly. "If you should refuse, I will enjoy telling your child personally that you hold no interest in his continuing welfare."

The King tried not to let his concern show in his eyes as he shook his head. He couldn't trust himself to speak. He rose from his chair and offered his hand for Boram to shake, and the Noxian mirrored him after a moment. The handshake was as firm as he remembered it, although Boram gripped his hand for longer and tighter than it was considered polite—reminding him subtly that he had a grave need and the King could not waste any time thinking about it.

"Until the next, Grand General." The King said politely as he withdrew his arm and tried to bring the feeling back into the tips of his fingers.

"Until the next, King." The Grand General returned graciously enough. He left the tent and strode towards Keiran. The captain ran to meet him; no doubt to see what his father wanted.

King Jarvan turned to look behind him. The Captain-General was racing over, but Xin Zhao was beating him by a full length. The Duke of Endurn was walking over instead of running. Maximilian never did like to seem harried in the face of others.

"What did he say?" Xin Zhao asked at once, but the King shook his head.

"Later," He reached out to take Xin by the arm again, and leaned on him in case the man thought to chuck a spear at Boram's retreating back. "I will tell you all later; it is a very grave matter."

"Your Majesty, may I have a word?" A voice said off to his side. The entire Royal Circle looked in the direction of the voice. It was Keiran Darkwill, and he looked impassive as ever.

"Yes, captain?" The King asked courteously as the Captain-General stiffened and put a hand to his sword. Xin Zhao's arm quivered underneath his grip, and the King gave him another pat to remind him it was rude to stab people in the gut without provocation.

"My Father says I am to accompany you, up until the edge of your picket." The captain tilted his head in the general direction of the Eternal General's back. "I will wait for you, and I will take your answer back to my Father. He says you have two hours to bicker, and no more than that."

"You will have to be searched and disarmed while you travel with us. I hope you understand." The Duke of Endurn said for him, which the King felt grateful for. By the gods the King felt he was close to breaking, but he was still in the eyes of the many and he couldn't afford to crumble now. It was interesting too, that Boram trusted him enough to take his son in temporary custody—or was it because the Eternal General was desperate enough for silence that no one else but a Darkwill had to carry the answer back to him? One could never tell.

"I will bear any treatment quietly." The young Darkwill assured them all, and he held his hands forward for the Captain-General to bind. The Head of all Knightly Orders went to work without further prodding.

"You are not afraid of being killed in our company?" The King probed as Keiran submitted to irons. He had to ask, of course. He did not want to lie, or to appear the paranoid one in the party.

Keiran only shrugged his shoulders as the Captain-General squirreled through his pockets. "I am disposable." He said simply, and his dead tone made the King's heart break a little more. This was exactly what he wished to avoid with his own son. The King looked at him pitifully, and Keiran returned his gaze with a bored look.

"He has nothing on him," The Captain-General declared gruffly, and that was the moment the King told them all that they could leave.

They rode back to the Demacian picket in relative silence with the captive Darkwill at the back of the column, surrounded by all two thousand of the Dauntless Vanguard. The King was quietly conversing with his brother-in-law the whole way, and from the look on Lord Spiritmight's face he did not like whatever the King was telling him. Ivar didn't envy him the privilege of being the King's closest confidant at the moment.

They left Keiran at the edge of the barricade surrounded by a hundred of the Dauntless Vanguard, and remained quiet until they returned to the King's Pavilion. Then the King dismissed all the guards and resumed his place on his throne. Xin Zhao resorted to pacing a hole through the floor, and the Duke of Endurn took his seat by the King's right. For his part, Ivar settled gratefully into a fur-covered chair across him, and tried not to think of how he was dirtying the King's furniture. He still hadn't bathed or shaved, and he was growing increasingly conscious of how he looked and smelled.

But all the Captain-General's domestic concerns flew away as soon as the King began to tell them what had happened in their private talk. He couldn't believe his ears when the King told them that Boram was  _bargaining_.  _Why_ , the King didn't want to say, but what the Eternal General asked of him Jarvan III freely divulged without hesitation: his son's safe return in exchange for twenty years of covering their eyes and pretending that all was well in the world.

"Absolutely  **not** ," Ivar said at once as soon as the King finished talking. He looked at his lord straight in the eye and shook his head, letting his fervor seep into his words. "I will  **not**  turn a blind eye to whatever destruction that bastard is going to wreck in the next twenty years. I would  **never**. It would violate my oath to uphold the peace."

"For once, I am in agreement with the Captain-General." The Duke of Endurn said as he rubbed at his chin and gestured to emphasize his point. "Boram is  _bargaining_ ; that means he is afraid of  _something_ , and I am all for letting him get what he has finally coming to him. Hundreds of years have passed already. Let Noxus drown in flames of his own making."

Xin Zhao did not say anything at all, and his silence surprised no one. He was also pacing that odd pattern of his. If he kept going, he would be wearing a trail through all the carpets he was stepping on. Ivar knew the man had been rescued from Noxus during the reign of King Jarvan II. He didn't know the particulars of it and he had no desire to know if it meant keeping a secret, but he knew enough of Noxus to expect the seneschal's silent and immediate consent to let Boram burn.

"I do not oppose the idea of letting the Grand General suffer; only I am concerned for his  _people_." The King said softly as he looked down at his hands. It was almost as if he could see the blood on them, and the Captain-General couldn't even imagine what was going through the King's mind at the moment. "They have not had a new ruler since he took office. If the Eternal General was suddenly removed from power, too many innocents would suffer from it. Their city-state could collapse in a bloody civil war. We have a responsibility to protect them from themselves, as absurd as that sounds."

"We do not." The Duke of Endurn scoffed at once. "We are  _Demacian_ , they are  _Noxian_.  _We_  are not responsible for  _them_. We can offer certain people asylum, but that is all we may do."

"Brother, you cannot be so callous." The King looked at him sadly. "We are  _all_  people of this world. No one is better or worse for being born somewhere else."

"Your disgusting idealism is going to  _slaughter_  us." Xin Zhao said without preamble, and the King looked very hurt as the seneschal continued mercilessly. "You say we have a responsibility to protect those Noxians, but I will tell you there is not a single soul among them who does not deserve some sort of comeuppance. They are  _all_  tainted. Let them kill each other. It is what animals do."

"And let my son die?" The King said with despair, and the Captain-General saw what was truly wearing away at the King. He could not accept the thought of allowing his son to die, even if it meant throwing the rest of the world into the gutter. "I cannot do  _that_. It would kill  _me_."

"Heirs can be  _replaced_." Xin Zhao replied ruthlessly, and that was that.

Ivar felt his heart twinge with hurt. Replaced was a callous word, but it was  _true_. The King had a new wife, and he still had some vigor left in him to have another child. As a father of twins, however, the Captain-General knew he didn't have it in him to replace his children. He loved them and their mother too much to consider them as  _disposable_. The choice in front of the King was hard, and it was not something the Captain-General could answer.

Almost as if he remembered the fact himself, the King turned to look at him now, and Ivar felt himself shrinking in the man's desperate gaze. "Dear Ivar, you are a father." The King pleaded. "Would you let your twins die for the sake of the world?"

"Lord, I cannot answer that." The Captain-General said fretfully as he looked down at his boots to avoid the King's eyes. "I beg you; do not order me to answer."

"His  _sacrifice_ will not be in vain." The Duke of Endurn interrupted then; Ivar was glad for it. "My nephew will be remembered in history as a martyr. Let him die for his city-state; it is what he would want. It is better than murdering millions for the sake of one."

The King pulled his head into his hands and swayed in pain in his chair. Ivar could only watch as he shook his head in denial.

"He is my  _son_." The King said in a half-sob, his amicable voice trembling with pain. "My  _only_  son; how will I ever look at myself again if I didn't do all that I could to save him? Why do you all wish to let him die? How could you all be so  **heartless**?"

"Much must be sacrificed for the greater good." The Duke of Endurn said at length. Even he was uncomfortable seeing the King so reduced and torn. "Brother— we have told you what we think, but you  _are_  the King. Only  _you_  can decide. The Council can stamp their feet and shout, but you are Head of State, and you know the law as well as anyone here."

"Decide and be done with it!" Xin Zhao interjected impatiently as he stopped his fevered pacing. He looked at the King with derision as he added. "Kill your son, or aid Boram in slaughtering millions. What say you?"

The King quaked in his chair, and he did not even look up at Xin Zhao's ultimatum. Everyone in the pavilion knew that King Jarvan didn't  _want_  to decide. He didn't have the heart in him to kill his child for the good of the world, and he didn't hate the Noxians enough to let them kill themselves in a bloody civil war. It was difficult to be the King of Demacia if one was so open and loving, so willing to see all that was good and all that could be in every single soul.

"Very well," The King said brokenly. He did not look up. "It is my decision, so I will make it alone. Please leave, and I will pen my reply to Boram in earnest. None of you will take it to Keiran, and none of you will be able to tell the Council what I have done if they choose to ask."

The inner circle looked at each other with mixed expressions—for the first time in years, they found themselves  _outside_  of a political decision, and it was the most important one thus far. The King was trying to protect them, and it hurt to be so excluded.

Xin Zhao looked like he wanted to fall on his own spear, and the Duke of Endurn was staring at the King in absolute shock as if it would solve anything. Bedraggled and utterly exhausted as he was, Ivar wondered if he looked any more pitiful in their eyes.

"The King has spoken." The Duke said finally, and not without hesitation. He rose from his chair and made his way to the flap of the pavilion, consciously not bothering to look back as he left. Ivar followed his example quietly, and as soon as he made it outside he noted that the air felt less choking. He stood for a while outside of the pavilion just breathing and massaging his face, and he heard the flap shift a minute later. Xin Zhao stomped past him without even speaking to him, gripping his spear so hard that it looked as if it would snap in his hands like a pencil.

It was all in the King's hands now. The inner circle knew his options but they did not know what his decision would be, and that was well and good for everyone. No one but the King had to bear the taint of this decision, and when the Council asked about it, only the King could tell them with certainty.

Now that all was quiet, his strength finally left him. A persistent ache in his head and a gnawing feeling in his stomach made itself felt. The Captain-General pulled at his collar to give himself a bit of air and looked for somewhere to rest. He had his own tent as befitted his rank, but he felt dizzy and ailing enough that he couldn't go too far without falling over. He half-weaved, half-stumbled his way to an empty bench next to a fire, and sat there massaging his aching brow and nursing his nausea.

Not for the first time Ivar wished he had not been so eager to become Captain-General in his younger years. He had lost so much trying to climb up from where he had been born a commoner, and what he held now caused him more grief than happiness. He was so very tired after coming all this way, and it only made him feel guiltier to see the King so conflicted and ready to bloody his hands for the sake of his child.

 _Ivar_  had been the one to lose Jarvan IV. Justice demanded his own life in exchange and he had told the King as much—but the King did not want to kill him for it, or so the Duke had claimed. Jarvan III loved him too much to execute him, and  _that_  was also staying the King's hand now with his beloved son.

The King had two choices in front of him—or was it just two? They did not know where the Prince was, and even the Spymaster with his scheming could only see so far, but perhaps there was some way to rescue the boy; if only they knew  _where_  in the damnable wilderness the Noxians had the Prince.

If they could get to Jarvan IV before the Noxians could do what they willed with him, the King would not need to agree at all to Boram's terms, and then they would not be obligated to keep their word and look the other way when Boram loosed his mangy dogs on the rest of the world—but all that depended on finding the Prince of the Realm, and he knew no one with the capability  _or_  recklessness to do so.

Ivar scratched at his stubble in thought, and felt himself recoil from the idea when his memory indulged him with a name. He knew someone very dear to him had been born there, and had spent most of her life there, and up in the Freljord. She was a ranger, with a kennel full of hounds that could keep a scent in their mind for weeks and a whole mew full of birds that would give her eyes in the sky. She was also a deadeye shot with a short bow;  _she_  could find the Prince, but if he volunteered her he would have her blood on his hands too if she failed— _and_  he would have to raise their twins by himself if the heartbreak did not kill him yet.

Quinn and Caleb would be six now, and  _maybe_  they would be taller than his riding boots. If he volunteered Marian, those two might not have parents by the end of it— but he knew it in his heart that if anyone could find the Prince, it was his Marian. A mother and a father for a child, if all went awry. There was some strange rightness in that idea, even if he knew that he would be the one to suffer.

Ivar blearily made an effort to stand. Perhaps the King could yet be dissuaded. When he made it back to the King's Pavilion, however, it was too late for anything. A page ran past him, and in the boy's hands was a letter freshly sealed with blue wax. It would have the King's seal on the front, and the King's handwriting inside. He followed the little one with his gaze until the boy vanished in the crowd, and the Captain-General did not need to follow him to know where he had gone—to Keiran, and from there, the letter would go to Boram.

He stopped himself from thinking about the contents of the letter. He had to tell the King there was another way. Ivar summoned what energy was left in him and went back inside the King's Pavilion, not even bothering to scratch politely on the flap to let the King know he was coming in. He saw the King was seated in the chair usually occupied by his scribe, and was openly weeping now that no one was around to see him.

"Lord," Ivar broached hesitantly. The King gave a start, rocking back in his chair and looking at him in shock, before he managed to compose himself and wipe his face.

"Yes, Ivar?" The King said, and his voice broke at the end of it.

"You know of my— the ranger, Marian McCrae." The Captain-General swallowed nervously before he continued. "She can find him, I know she can. With your permission, I would like to let her go with the half of the Dauntless Vanguard that I left in the city of La Forbie under the command of Marcus Crownguard. Together they may yet find and retrieve the Prince."

"It would be a suicide mission, not a rescue. He would be deep behind Noxian lines, surrounded by the finest soldiers of the army and kept under lock and key." The King said after a while spent in silence. He looked at him wretchedly. "She is the mother of your twins, and you love her very much. I cannot do that to you."

"That she is and I do, lord." Ivar replied without hesitation. He did not need any more reminding of what would happen if she would fail, but he was confident in Marian's skill as a tracker and as a ranger. "But I would not be telling you this if I did not think she would succeed, and it is only right for me to do all that I can to absolve my sin."

"But if she dies, the twins will have no one." The King said unhappily as he wiped his hands on the front of his robe self-consciously. "And I know you will die after her; I do not think I can do that. I have killed enough families today."

"She will be proud to serve, lord." The Captain-General told him quietly. "And… if such a thing did occur, I would stay and take care of the twins somehow; it is my duty as their father after all."

"Duty— my son was proud to serve too, and all the soldiers that went with him in his charge." The King went on. "And all the soldiers I will damn in the future; they will be proud to serve. I am only doing my duty as a father too, but no one else will think that."

"Lord," The Captain-General said again. "You  _must_  try."

Ivar didn't want to think of what the King meant by his words. He did not want to know what the King had written. He knew for certain he couldn't bear it in quiet as the King would for the next few decades until it was time for him to die. The King trembled, and Ivar was afraid the man would say no, but at long last the King wiped at his face and nodded his head.

"I will write to her then." Ivar said with relief plain in his features and in his voice. He felt as if a weight had been nudged off his shoulders. Hope was a powerful thing. "I will tell her what is at stake, and I will let her make the decision to go. If she refuses, there will be no blood on your hands."

"No more than what is already on them." The King mentioned under his breath. Ivar pretended not to hear. He saluted the King and then he turned on his heel and left. He had to find a piece of paper and a quill, and after that the fastest messenger hawk in the royal falconer's keeping. If Marian could track the boy down, and if the Dauntless Vanguard could rescue him—it would mean the world to the King, and to them all.

Somewhere in the wilderness, Jarvan IV returned to the world of the living again. Swain's raven had left him after what seemed like an eternity, and it had pecked at the open wound on his leg in a show of solidarity for its master before leaving. The Demacian hardly looked anything like a human being given the bruises and the slowly oozing wounds the raven had left on his skin. His leg was always in his mind, prickling at his senses and digging in nails of pain whenever he moved.

He was never fully alone, surrounded by Noxian troops as he was, but the moment the raven had gone was the moment he broke and wept, uncaring if anyone heard him at all. The saltiness of his tears burnt as they flowed down the Prince's battered face, making him choke and cry all the more. He didn't know what was going to happen to him now, and it scared him that he would never see Demacia again.

He tried to curl in on himself, to make himself as small as he could, but every now and then a Noxian soldier would come to laugh and to prod him with their weapons and then he would wake from his half-sleep with a strangled sob. A particularly rowdy and inebriated batch of men had haphazardly cut a lock of hair from his head as a trophy, nicking his scalp with a rough and rusted knife.

Though Jarvan had shouted at them and had tried to worm away, they cut his hair anyway and he felt all the more violated for it. He couldn't do anything here. All he could do was to wait for whatever end his tormentors had in store for him.

His voice was hoarse with screaming and it felt like his head would explode. All his bravado had deserted him as the hours had passed. All his youthful anger had been quelled by Swain's cane and his familiar. All he wished for now was to die, and for his father never to hear of how pathetic he was at the very end.

No one had seen to his injured leg or his mauled face in the interim. He could feel a chill starting to settle in his joints as he had no other clothing on him except for a pair of drawers. The Noxians that surrounded his cage were content to leave him to his pain, seemingly callous to the notion of him surviving long enough to reach their destination. He didn't know how long it had been since Swain had visited, but when the door to his prison opened with a great deal of clamoring outside, he found himself recoiling.

Jarvan cracked his eye open just a bit. His face had swelled so much that it was painful to even shift his eyelids. He had been crying for a while now. His head hurt and he felt bone-tired and dry. He could see a bit of boot, and he tried to shift himself away from what he saw as another abuser. He was stopped, however, by a pair of hands falling on his back and shoulders that gently and firmly kept him where he was.

"What a  **fucking**  number." A voice muttered in front of him, chewing on syllables and spitting them out with venom. "I  **fucking**  told them to not  **fuck**  things up even  _more_ ,  **fucking**  bastards and their  **fucking**  sadism— **fuck**  all!"

Jarvan squinted up to see a man with clipped blonde hair and blue eyes, a wealth of stubble on his face. His white shirt had brown patches on it. Jarvan tried to squirm away again, but the hands held him and kept him from rolling away.

"I didn't realize what they would do to him… such a poor child," A voice behind him said. He could feel a pat on his shoulder. What madness was this? Was a Noxian  _really_  expressing his sympathy towards an enemy? Was this one of Swain's tricks?

"What're you—" Jarvan mumbled around swollen lips. "Are you… are you from Demacia? Will you…"

"I'm sorry, no." A voice behind him said gently. "We are with the Noxian army."

"Hello again, Princey, I'm here to keep you alive  _but_  not to completely heal you." The blonde man told him, his voice mocking and thick with anger. "Apparently, they didn't even think to care for you so you'd actually  _survive_  the journey to your execution, and they didn't give a flying  _shit_  for a medic's opinion. Noxians are such fucking stuck up assholes, aren't they?"

Jarvan could hardly believe his ears. Here he was in a Noxian camp surrounded by soldiers who would like nothing better than to let him die horribly and miserably during the night, but there was a man in front of him who said he was here to treat him? And what of the other visitor to his cell? What were these two playing at, showing him kindness after immeasurable cruelty?

"Fucking pieces of shit, why they need to put you through all this fucking abuse is  _beyond_  me. I would've just cut your head off—" Conrad hissed. He stopped long enough to glance at the man behind Jarvan and then added. "—and don't give me that fucking look, old man."

"Hospitalman," A gentle voice pressed to his right, over his shoulder. "Can you help him, or not?"

Jarvan just couldn't understand any of it.

"Why—" Jarvan babbled again. "Why are you helping me?"

"It would show very badly on the 2nd Legion if their prisoner expired during the night." The man behind him said loudly. "We are here to see to it that you survive until the dawn; nothing more. Conrad, if you would kindly begin?"

The blonde man was wearing a pair of blue gloves. He reached out and gently poked and prodded the Prince's flesh, a surprising contrast to the hurtful jabs he had suffered during the day from the soldiers of the army.

He made an angry noise in his throat when the saw the cut on the Prince's scalp, and Jarvan could hear him muttering under his breath as he looked closer and gingerly pulled hair away from the area. "This isn't a war wound, it's a trophy cut—look how they sawed at it and how his hair is all uneven. The idiots probably tried to scalp him with the rusty knife they use to clip their pubes, too. I can't fucking trust them for even a second. This is a fucking nightmare."

It wasn't until the hospitalman arrived at the Prince's mauled leg that Conrad exploded with professional fury, and he angrily chewed on his syllables like they were excrement tumbling out of his mouth. "Oh for fuck's sake, they might as well have cut your damn leg off! Just look at this damage. You'd find more care on a fucking pig raised for the fire pit."

"We do not need to discuss this any more than we already have." The voice Conrad had addressed as Boss replied patiently. "The ill behavior of the 2nd Legion will be corrected, and the consent of its officers will be addressed."

The hospitalman shook his head and muttered darkly as he took extra care with Jarvan's leg, probing firmly and quickly so as to not cause the Prince any more pain.

Who  _were_  these people?

"Corrected  _and_  addressed," Jarvan found himself repeating the word with a miserable wheeze. He squirmed to look at the man behind him but the Noxian kept him facing away. "Am I supposed to believe you? That you intended some other fate for me? What are you playing at, and why?"

"You are royalty," Boss said behind him. His tone was slow and disappointed. "They were supposed to treat you accordingly. You were not to be harmed or tortured, but the truth fell far from expectations. The General did not care, and his men followed his example. It is regrettable, but it is done. How hard will it be, Conrad?"

He heard buttons being undone and bit of cloth being shifted about. It wasn't until something bumped into his good knee that he looked down to see a bag filled to the brim with what looked to be medical supplies. Was this the man who had made his fever go away earlier?

The blonde haired man was rubbing at his forehead with his forearm, taking care not to touch his gloved hands with his skin. "I've seen piss poor shit before, but Princey here takes the cake. I can't even set his leg because your flunky fucked with it some more. All I can do is clean his face and shoot him up. You should've brought a healer instead, boss."

A healer, he said. Did Noxians even  _have_  healers? Jarvan had always thought they threw away the injured into pits and buried them alive. For them to have healers seemed like an impossibility. He did not think Noxians had the patience to treat someone when they had been wounded—but apparently they  _did_.

"I do not need a  _healer_. I only need someone who cares if he lives or dies." Boss said softly. "There is no one—medic  _or_  healer—within the next hundred miles that cares  _enough_. If a couple of bandages and a mute for his pain is all you can provide, then that is all I will ever ask for. See to him."

"Oh,  _I_  care about  _people_  now?" Conrad replied tongue-in-cheek. Boss gave him a look, and the hospitalman sighed and rolled his shoulders. "Right,  _yes_ —totally! I am a beacon of love  _and_  affection. So you're asking for my professional opinion?"

Boss must have nodded, because then the blonde voiced his thoughts as he rummaged through his bag. He pulled out a few items from the kit, which Jarvan couldn't see too well. "Normally, I'd just shove a potion down his throat like a horse and that would be it, but open wounds are a disaster waiting to happen. I'll clean him up and sew what I can. As for the leg, well, I can't give him a lot of the weak stuff; it'll maul his guts. No, I need to go straight into the blood. I need to get to the median cubital vein— that's in his arm."

He didn't know what those things were, and he couldn't understand most of what the hospitalman said. Everything seemed terribly new to him, and he was still trying to wrap his head about the concept of a  _kind_  Noxian.

"We will risk much, undoing his restraints." Boss replied cautiously. "Can you not seek a vein somewhere else?"

For all his sympathy towards Jarvan it seemed that even he did not want to be too generous. At least  _that_  was a familiar thing. Jarvan squirmed to get a better look at them both, which failed miserably because Boss was keeping him pinned.

"Look, there are a  _lot_  of ways to get medication into a body and I  _am_  trained for most of them, but my pay grade isn't high  _enough_  for me to  _willingly_  shove my fingers up a Demacian's rectum, even if it is  _the_ most noble  _and_ royal asshole." Conrad retorted. "I don't think Princey here wants my fingers up his ass either."

Jarvan made an insulted noise in his throat. "Don't you  **dare**  go anywhere near my drawers." He said with what venom was left in him after hours of being pecked at by a crow and prodded at with spears. His underwear was the only dignity he had left with him, and he would sooner die than let anyone take even  _that_  away from him.

"Now that you mentioned it, I don't  _like_  your drawers." Conrad replied as he mimicked the Prince's insulted tone. "You could have all kinds of underpants in the world to shelter the royal baby maker but  _no_ , you're wearing  _boxers_  and they just had to be stupidly  _white_.  _Really_?"

" _Conrad_."

"I'm not even going to talk about the stains you got there; I'm just absolutely disappointed that you're  _not_  wearing Ionian silk boxers in royal blue  _and_  gold. That's what I thought hoity-toity royalty like  _you_  would wear—"

Boss reached over to nudge the side of the hospitalman's face. Conrad evaded him easy enough. Jarvan could only watch them in absolute shock as his mind tried to process what had just happened. Of all the times to have  _anyone_  insult his underwear, it had to be when he was bound and in a Noxian prison. Why were  _Noxians_  even criticizing his choice of drawers while they had him clapped in irons? What was the  _point_?

"We are  _not_  discussing the Prince's drawers; I merely wish to point out that if we unbind him we risk him hurting himself, or even  _you_." Boss said with an amused tone in his voice. "If you want a vein, can't you go through his neck?"

" _Shit_ —do I look like I have the necessary equipment stuffed up my shirt? Trying the neck is harder than it looks. I can try his foot or his leg but you don't need to be a medic to know that position is going to kill his fingers." Conrad was frustrated, and it showed in his voice.

All this debating seemed pointless to the young Prince. They were going to kill him anyway, why did they need to argue about the best way to get to his vein? Filled with misery and hatred for himself and his situation, Jarvan pulled what strength was left in him to whisper. "Why do you even bother? Let me just die tonight with what's left of my honor."

"Oh,  _no_ ,  **no** ,  ** _no_** — don't you  _dare_  give me your honor shite, you motherfucking Demacian turkey." The hospitalman jabbed his finger in Jarvan's direction furiously. He had struck a chord somewhere. "You know how many people  _die_  out of some twisted  **fucking**  sense of self-respect or family obligation? Too  **fucking**  many; there's no honor to be had whether you die in a cage or out there. Death is death, so fuck you  _and_  your psychological bullshit!"

Jarvan drew back in surprise, and Boss kept him firmly against him. How  _dare_  he speak that way to him? Moreover, why did his stupid and insulting words make some modicum of sense? Too many people died from fulfilling some sort of oath or promise—he had sent the Royal Guard and most of the Knightly Orders to their deaths with a mere  _word_ — but everything still confused him.

He did not want to die in a cage because it was not becoming of a Prince. Dying in battle was what he had been taught was acceptable. Anything else seemed to pale in comparison, save for dying in bed after a long and fulfilled life. The latter did not seem very probable at the moment, and he stifled a sob.

"Peace, Conrad." Boss said lowly, patting the Prince's shoulder reassuringly. "What's done is done. Lecturing a sick Prince will do no good; we must see to his health now."

"Fucking fine, but the Dumbassian  _does_  have a bit of a point." Conrad gestured to the prone Jarvan. "Why are we even trying to help him if all they're going to do is to put his head on a pike to wave it at his father? Why bother with the sticking plaster if they're going to just toss the fucking royal asshole into a furnace?"

 _Yes, why even bother?_  Jarvan thought bitterly. Why did anyone even bother when the ultimate end to life was death? Why bother when he had no honor left to call his own? He was almost naked, bound in chains and mistreated like an animal. All he wanted was to die as a human being, and these people would not even give him  _that_.

"If the Demacians had captured  _me_ , I have no doubt they would have been kinder." Boss replied after some time spent in thought. "I intend to show the same courtesy, even if it will be a waste. So please see to him, and I will see to the army."

Conrad gave Boss a knowing look and shook his head when the man returned his stare with his own. "Right, whatever."

It shocked the young Prince, how there was a Noxian who would not wish him ill outside of what was needed. He didn't think it was possible. He had been taught to hate them all, but here was a Noxian who seemed to  _care_. He didn't know what to think of these two now. Conrad seemed to give little weight to allegiances, and the one called Boss seemed disturbingly considerate for someone in the Noxian army.

"You are in control of your body," Boss stated, and it gave Jarvan heart to hear those words. He had been beaten and tortured, thrown into a situation that he had no control over. Being reminded of what freedom he still had with him and that he was still a person was reassuring. "Will you allow us your arm? Will you give your word not to injure the hospitalman, and not to run? I would regret killing you, if you tried."

Jarvan nodded. There wasn't anything else he could do. He heard keys turning in a lock, and then it felt like he had discovered his arms for the first time. They had been left in such an uncomfortable position for so long he was starting to get pins and needles a scant few seconds after his irons had been pulled away. Boss did the same for the restraints on his ankles, and it felt good to wiggle his toes again when the chains were taken away.

"It's time for baby's first bath." Conrad said. "Unless baby wants to clean himself, in which case I'd  _sorely_  appreciate it because I don't want to go near your  _unfashionable_  drawers."

Jarvan would have thrown a punch at that moment but he did give his word not to resist. He sat glaring angrily at the hospitalman instead until Boss gave a sigh.

"You  _are_  terribly filthy." The Noxian said.

"I would rather clean myself." Jarvan said with a hiss and Conrad rolled his eyes and tossed a wet towel at him. Though every movement hurt and he still didn't have complete control over his limbs, the Prince of the Realm cleaned himself while the hospitalman prepared his kit. The cloth he used felt frigid against his skin, but he tolerated it.

Jarvan needed help with his mauled leg and his bruised back however, and he didn't trust the hospitalman to do it. Almost as if he was used to wiping down other people, Boss helped him sit up, reached over and briskly cleaned the areas for him before he handed the towel back.

Once he was leaning on the bars of his prison he could not see much of the man's face because he wore a hood and a shroud like Swain did. Jarvan only saw the man's strange bright blue-green pupils, with laugh lines emanating from the edges of his eyes.

"Water," The Prince asked weakly. He felt it was safe to ask for something in the company of these two, but he did not want to say please. He longed to have some control again, and it was palpable in his voice. "Water, now."

"Oh, of course, Your Princeliness.  _Anything_  for you." The hospitalman said as he exchanged Jarvan's used towel for a new one. "Would you like a crystal glass?"

Shaking his head, Boss reached over to the nearby water bowl but withdrew his hand when he saw what was in it. Making a noise of disgust in his throat, he dug into his pack, drew out a canteen and handed that to the Prince instead.

Jarvan leered at him—or at least, he tried to, what with a swollen face. He set the towel aside on his good knee and asked. "Is that…"

"No, it is water." The man assured him, and something in his tone made the Prince trust him. Jarvan shakily took the canteen, unscrewed the top with some difficulty and took a tentative and suspicious sip.

When Jarvan was rewarded with cool, fresh water he drank hungrily until the thing was empty, ignoring the pain that lanced from his broken lips and the noise that his teeth made against the rim of the canteen.

"I've seen a minotaur guzzle like that." Conrad said around the corner of his mouth as he handed Boss a bottle filled with a bright violet liquid. "Here, make him drink this too."

Boss shook his head fondly. He offered Jarvan the bottle but the Prince didn't take it immediately.

"What is  _that_?" Jarvan asked doubtfully. Violet seemed to be a very strange color for something to drink, and he didn't like how it seemed to have bubbles in it.

"It's blueberry, and I tried to make it interesting." Conrad interjected. "What do you care? It's good for you; it'll keep your innards happy."

"Piss off." Jarvan replied irritably as he tried to give the bottle back to Boss, but the man shook his head and nudged him gently. The Prince didn't want to drink the strange looking liquid, and it wasn't until Boss uncorked it and took a sip from it himself to show him that it wouldn't kill him that Jarvan followed suit—albeit very slowly and shakily.

Conrad was right—it  _was_  blueberry, and the bubbles made it a very strange experience to drink—his throat felt like it was being tickled and he was quite certain a few of those bubbles wound up in his nose somehow.

"Would you like to eat something?" The Noxian offered as he took his canteen back. "You will be unable to do anything for a while."

He  _did_  want to, but Jarvan didn't trust his stomach enough to hold anything but water and… well, whatever it was that the hospitalman had given him. He shook his head, and Boss screwed the cap back on and returned the canteen to his pack.

Jarvan finished wiping himself down and Conrad threw the last cloth away. "Now to  _actual_  work— Princey, which one is your dominant arm? Right or left?"

"Right, and I am not  _Princey_." Jarvan whispered as he massaged his arms, twitched his fingers and grimaced at the prickling feeling his movements left in their wake. He tried to measure himself against these two, but both seemed to be in their prime. If he tried to run he would only be killed.

"Uh-huh, Princey. Keep on trying." Conrad retorted as he pulled Jarvan's left hand towards him and arranged the rest of his arm so that it lay straight and flat across his knee. "I can see you  _really_  love to use your right arm there— _heh_. You must be alone a  _lot_."

"Is there anything else you  _need_ , Conrad, aside from what you have in your pack?" Boss asked, gently urging the conversation back to its original purpose.

"Oh I don't know." Conrad muttered back as he pulled a small, silver bottle. He set that between his legs and unwrapped something. "How about cleaning his cage? Maybe changing his water and adding some food into the bowl;  **oh fucking come on** , what do you fucking think he needs, boss?"

"How about change of tone," Boss replied testily. "And a better bedside manner?"

Conrad grumbled under his breath but he took the hint as he withdrew a bit of liquid from the bottle using a curious thin implement. He held that for Boss to hold for the moment as he tied an orange elastic band around the top of Jarvan's arm, tight enough to cut off the flow of blood for a brief moment.

The hospitalman tapped at the inside of the Prince's forearm with practiced ease, and wiped away at a certain spot with a cotton ball and some sort of liquid that left his fevered skin feeling cold and refreshed.

"Make a fist for me, your Jarvanness." When Jarvan complied, there were a few taps again and then Conrad continued. "Beautiful arm, that. I can see the vein from here. Breathe in."

Jarvan did so, and as he inhaled he watched Conrad pierce his flesh with a small cylindrical tool. There was the insect bite he had felt earlier. Compared to the waves of pain that he felt radiating from his leg and his face, it was hardly anything to be worried for.

"What is it?" Jarvan asked him. It just felt strange, to have something inside him. He watched the hospitalman work in mild fascination. He had never seen such things in Demacia—or perhaps he had never gotten sick enough to need it.

"Hypodermic needle mounted on a glass syringe, you uncivilized bastard." Conrad undid the band and commandeered the syringe he had in the Prince's vein, letting the blood flow back into Jarvan's arm. "As for what's in it, I can only say it's a state secret. Breathe out, open your hand— ha! Look at that, old man. First try and I'm already in. Aren't I the greatest?"

"Yes, you certainly are  _worth_  your weight in  _complaints_." Boss replied dryly.

"Well fuck you too, boss." Conrad replied without missing a beat. He pressed down on the plunger, sending liquid ice into Jarvan's arm. The hospitalman held him so that he couldn't reflexively draw his limb back. "That's the analgesic. It'll kick in a bit. Breathe in and then out for me, will you?"

Jarvan followed his instruction meekly, and he felt the alien thing being pulled from his arm as he exhaled. Conrad applied a tight sticking plaster over the spot and began to clean up after himself, and Jarvan watched as Boss reached over to press down on the spot with his thumb.

"Perhaps you could see to his face, and that horrid cut on his scalp." Boss suggested in the interim.

"I'll do that when he goes to happy land." Conrad muttered. All the same Jarvan heard him rummaging through his bag again, digging through glass bottles and reading their names to himself. All the terms sounded unfamiliar to him, and being subjected to whatever care this was made him more aware of his ignorance.

"What did you do? I feel…  _strange_." Jarvan asked. He was starting to feel heavy and oddly comfortable on the rough floor of the wagon, and his voice reflected that much as he settled into drawling out syllables.

"That shot was to take the edge off the pain. The potion is so your body can survive the night, and now I'm going to give you something to fight off a possible infection. You're halfway to the land of rainbows and honey already; medicine  _is_  wonderful, isn't it? Too bad Noxus and Demacia spend too much time beating the shit out of each other to take advantage of this sort of thing." Conrad waved his gloved fingers in the Prince's face.

Jarvan found the effort of following the man's movements too much to do. He started to melt downward, and Boss caught him just in time to ease him on his back carefully so as to not upset his wounds and his leg.

"On the contrary, Piltover is not exactly  _generous_  when it comes to its scientific assets, and Zaun asks too much for  _anything_  to be viable on a wide scale." Boss corrected the hospitalman wryly. "When the Accord is put into force, perhaps both of them will be more…  _charitable_  with their work."

"I just fucking love you  _so_  much boss, you  _always_  know what to say to make Noxus sound  _nice_." Conrad said in overly sweet tones. He left Jarvan's arm alone as he pulled out a bottle filled with a dark brown liquid, setting it on the wagon floor. The label on the bottle was in a squiggly hand that strangely shifted in the Prince's rapidly muddling vision.

"Do you know of any  _other_  place that would  _willingly_  shelter a man who has a standing warrant for his arrest? Manslaughter, was it?" Boss said impishly as he reached over and tried to push the hospitalman over again, like how a master of hounds would nudge an incessant puppy.

"Did you know that the word 'laughter' is  _also_  present in manslaughter? The warrant's wrong; my crime is actually man's  _laughter_." Conrad deflected with a smirk as he kept his balance. Jarvan didn't even try to stop himself this time as he reached over and tried to punch the man in the gut for making a terrible joke.

"Hey, boss, do me a favor and turn the slapping Dumbassian on his good side." Conrad said with a laugh. "We don't want him to choke on his own spit. If that happens, I'd have to kiss him."

The hospitalman poured some of the brown fluid onto a cloth, and then he started to dab at Jarvan's wounds with it. In the meantime, Boss pushed him so that he was lying on the side that didn't have his mauled leg. Jarvan would've tried to move himself, but he felt too heavy and too languid to do anything else but breathe.

It felt bizarre, to be patted at and to feel it as if he was not in his own body. His leg had stopped its complaining. The fluid left a stinging trail on his skin but it was very distant. Upon finishing with the battered flesh of the Prince's head, he replaced the cloth with a fresh one and did the same for his mutilated leg.

"Piltover," Jarvan mumbled. It took him a full minute to continue talking and he fought hard to stay awake. "You're from Piltover? What are you doing here?"

"I was just a poor boy and nobody loved me, so I killed a man and now I make a living from shouting at plebeians who don't change their socks and refuse to hydrate regularly." Conrad replied lightly, making fun of the circumstances by which he found himself in. He inspected his work before he made a disappointed noise in his throat. "Okay, Princey, I need to cut your hair."

"No." Jarvan said immediately. He liked his hair because it was dark like his mother's. That was part of what made the failed trophy cut hurt his delicate confidence all the more.

"If I don't cut your hair, it could get into that head wound and it'll make it harder for me to sew you up." Conrad's tone lacked his usual good humor before he corrected himself. "Besides, you look like an idiot with that bald spot."

"Piss off." Jarvan said with a weak snarl, but Boss sighed at that moment and pushed him about so that Conrad could get to his head with a straight razor. Feeling betrayed by this behavior, Jarvan squirmed and tried to evade the hospitalman's razor, but he had been drugged. All he could do was suffer in indignant silence as the hospitalman carefully cut away his beautiful dark hair until it was all even and short on his scalp.

"Hey, I may talk shit a lot but when I ask for medical things— I fucking mean it." Conrad told him as he cleaned his razor. "There. All done. Do you want some chocolate?"

"Just do what you came for." Jarvan muttered. The indignity of it made his mood sink, and he sulked as the hospitalman he took an extra bottle from his pack and doused the cut in whatever solution the bottle contained.

Conrad quietly dabbed at the wound on Jarvan's scalp with the fluid-soaked cloth, and then the hospitalman took out a curved needle and thread. "Hold on, let me practice my cross-stitching. Do you want flapping birds or chubby bunnies on your scalp?"

"Birds?" Boss supplied helpfully as he shifted the Prince's body to let Conrad properly sew the cut shut on the Demacian's head. His tone was forcibly light, almost as if he was trying to apologize for what he had helped Conrad do. "The Prince likes to indulge in a bit of hunting, if I can recall correctly."

"No." Jarvan muttered. His mistake still pained him, and he did not like to have the shame brought up.

Conrad worked very quickly for someone with a needle and thread, and after a series of distant little pricks and faint pulling sensations, Jarvan found himself being returned to his original position as Conrad prepared a new syringe and cleaned a spot on the upper part of his arm.

Unlike before, once he had filled the syringe with a fluid from another bottle he had with him, Conrad stabbed it gleefully into the muscle of the Prince's arm and pressed down on the plunger— all in one motion. Jarvan certainly felt  _that_.

"I'm not sorry." Conrad said simply, though Boss gave him a suspicious and mildly disappointed look as he put away the syringe and rubbed on another sticking plaster in the area he had just stabbed. "It's an intramuscular injection; I needed to get it into his deltoid. You can remove your thumb now."

"Did you  _have_  to smile?" Boss inquired snidely as he removed his thumb from the Prince's arm.

"I'm a happy man, what can I say?" Conrad commented as he opened a little jar and covered his gloves in a viscous fluid. "It'll ache but at least he won't spasm out of existence; okay, Princey, if  _this_  hurts  _and_  you're a tenor, scream in high C."

Conrad applied the gel to his face and to his leg. It  _did_  hurt, but only like a faint memory of being burnt would hurt. No doubt if he hadn't been shot up with whatever it was inside the syringe he would have screamed and tried to rip his own skin off.

As it was he only shivered uncomfortably and kept his complaint in his throat where he felt it belonged. The hospitalman made sure to cover every little wound with it, and then liberally spread it even further to help it permeate into his skin.

"Not in the mood to sing?" Conrad asked him.

"Didn't hurt enough." Jarvan slurred. Since when did talking become such a heavy effort? "How strange."

"You are now a god among men… if the epitome of human existence is to be a dazed and drugged up slug. It'll keep you for five hours. If nothing goes wrong tonight, I'll be back when it wears off." Conrad patted him for good measure, like a man praising a rowdy child for sitting still. "I didn't put anything to nudge him to bed, boss. I figured he'd nod off on his own. Can I go?"

"Yes, thank you, hospitalman." Boss said softly.

"Do you want me to find the guards?" Conrad added with a glance about. Jarvan dozily followed his gaze. He only realized it now—they were alone. How important  _were_  these two idiots in front of him, and how in the world did they manage to tell the guards to turn their heads?

"W-wait—" The Prince said weakly. If there were no guards, then he could escape, and if he could escape he could find his way back to Demacia somehow. He had no knowledge of anywhere outside of the south, but he could  _try_. "How did you… are all the guards gone? Why not let me go now?"

Boss looked at Conrad, and the medic looked at them both as if they were monsters from the Void and they were going to consume him slowly once they had roasted him on a spit.

"Are you  _seriously_ — are you asking  _me_  to leave a drugged, high value patient  _in_  the wild  _with_  a broken leg? Fuck you two to the Void and back." The medic looked down at him, unapologetic as he went on. "In any case it's fucking treason to even let your little toe out the door. Sorry Princey, but you're staying right here. I want to live long enough to go back to Boram's Point and wipe rich kids' bloody noses."

"I cannot let you go, I am sorry." Boss added softly. "It is as Conrad said; you are too valuable to the army and many will suspect us if you are gone within the next hour. I had to talk a fair bit to convince them to treat your fever, and  _this_  is stretching my influence sorely. You may leave, Conrad, and take as much time as you need. I doubt our prisoner can escape, given what you've put in him."

Conrad gathered his things and left with a murmured comment about how psychotic the entire world was around him, leaving Boss next to the young Prince.

"I would clothe you, but you have many wounds and it is best to air them out." Boss said as he carefully took Jarvan's wrists and clapped them in irons again—but at least his arms were at an easier position. He did the same for his ankles, taking great care with his injured leg.

"Is it?" Jarvan inquired sleepily, repeating the words just so he could stay awake.

"Yes. I only hope that you will remember this when you are older," Boss said to him as he pulled two blankets from a pack he had kept by his side. "Courtesy should be  _always_  be upheld; it is what separates  _us_  from  _them_. It is a pity the later generations do all they can to avoid being civil."

Jarvan watched as Boss covered him with one blanket so that he could keep warm for the night, and rolled up the other to place it underneath his head.

" _Civil_." Jarvan repeated. He looked down at the blanket that was covering him and then back at the man who had given him some measure of comfort. "What a strange word from a Noxian."

"You misunderstand me, then." Boss replied succinctly as he tucked the cover up to the Prince's chest, settling his manacled arms atop it so that the guard could still see that Jarvan was still bound. "I only mean to say that one should not kick a burning dog; it would be excessive."

Jarvan found that it was getting difficult to keep his eyes open. His pain had kept him miserably awake earlier. Now that his leg had been muted he could feel his exhaustion creeping in. Sleep would be most welcome.

"Will I  _ever_  get older?" Jarvan said around a yawn, bringing up the last thing he had heard from Boss. It seemed odd to be talking about a future with a stranger when he knew full well he was in the hands of doom.

"There is time." Boss replied as he stood up and tugged on his hood to keep it on his head. He hefted his pack on as he added. "I have no doubt that the King would do all he can to save you. A father's love is a powerful thing, and there  _is_  the matter of succession to think of."

" _Save_  me?" Jarvan mumbled with a disjointed laugh as he remembered the catastrophic charge at Swain. He had asked the Royal Guard and the Knights to die for him at that moment, and they had followed him even though they probably knew better. They could have refused him, but their oaths had taken them to their graves. " _How_  can he save me?  _Why_  would he?"

"You  _are_  the Prince of the Realm." Boss started to say, but Jarvan cut him off.

"My  _new_  mother will do her duty," Jarvan drawled lazily, voicing his insecurity with the wanton carelessness that only a man at death row could have, and because he had been drugged he spoke with the speed of a tortoise chewing on a lettuce leaf that was keen on escaping its beak. "She will birth a  _new_  son. And the King will call him  _Jarvan_  also, and then  _he_  will be Prince of the Realm. Does it really matter?"

Boss looked at him, struck to silence by his words. The Noxian's eyes softened and grew dim. Jarvan had seen the same darkness in his father's eyes, when the King had thought he was not looking at all. With his father, it had always struck him as a sort of disappointed look. Seeing it in the Noxian's eyes made him think there was possibly more to it than he had thought.

"A child is  _never_  replaced." Boss said at length. He seemed to have personal experience on the matter. Jarvan could scarcely believe it. "A child is  _never_  forgotten, even if he shares a name with another. A father will  _always_  remember. If the King does not save you, then I have no doubt he will keep your memory even closer to his heart; perhaps until the end of his days. I would not envy the child who will follow you—if there would be one at all."

"Is a  _Noxian_  trying to teach me about a parent's love?" Jarvan asked bitterly. He would have waved his hand dismissively if he could, but he was manacled and his arms were about as heavy as pure rods of lead. He could not move even if he wanted to. "I know well enough. Keep your lecture to yourself and… piss off."

"Are Noxians so wicked in your eyes that you cannot see us loving our children?" Boss returned with a voice that hinted at a certain kind of exhaustion; this was not the first time he had this argument before. "Do you think that we propagate through spite, and that we spring up from the blood of our enemies fully formed?"

Jarvan made a snort that sounded more like a baby's fart thanks to his drugged state. Admittedly, he  _had_  thought that way before. In fact, he had thought even  _worse_  of Noxians. His upbringing had demonized them into nothing more than scheming, murderous creatures of the night and Swain's assassination attempt had only justified his prejudice.

He had beaten and broken Swain as if the man had not been human. It was only expected to have the same treatment given to him when their places had been exchanged. He couldn't find it in himself to feel regret, however. Swain killed his mother, and now the commander had only added more coals to the flames of Jarvan's temper.

"No, we are human, same as you. We were only raised differently, and were told to value other things." Boss reached out to pull his hood closer to his head, and did the same to the shroud that kept his face covered. "A few have shown you cruelty, but not all Noxians are what you think they are."

"Are you sure you are not Demacian?" Jarvan said drowsily, unwilling to grant the Noxian any sort of assurance that he was correct in his assumption. "You…  _prattle_  like one."

"You will not be the first to think so." He said around what looked to be a rueful smile. His eyes said everything that the shroud hid from view. "It is getting dangerous for even one such as myself; I will do what I can to make the men leave you in peace. Sleep well, Prince Jarvan."

"And you," Jarvan babbled reflexively. Court upbringing had done its work on him. "Boss whoever; not that it matters. Good night."

"I can give you my name, if you prefer." Boss offered.

Jarvan looked at him blearily, and then with all the petulance of a Prince he scoffed and turned his gaze. "If you wish."

"My name is Marcus du Couteau." The Noxian said to him quietly.

"Like Crownguard." Jarvan mumbled woozily. He knew the name du Couteau, but he couldn't remember precisely where he had heard of it. Perhaps when he had gotten some sleep, then he could think properly. "Marcus too."

Marcus nodded at him and made an elaborate bow before he left. Swords and pikes clattered as the guards fell back to their places, and Jarvan could see the outline of their backs in the firelight. The key turned in his prison lock, and then he was alone again to await the dawn.

The Prince of the Realm settled into sleep easier now that he had been seen to, though the dream that greeted him was filled the thunder of hooves, flashes of verdant lightning and the smell of blood. Above the din was Swain's mocking laughter, the sound of keening ravens and his own desperate voice, calling on others to rally with the Prince of the Realm.

Beneath his feet was a sea of skulls and black blood, jaws slack with silent screams as frantically grasping skeletal hands encrusted with mud and draped with hanging flesh pulled at every inch of him and dragged him down.

He struggled, howled and tried to reach for anything that would avail him, but there was nothing to hold on to and nothing to do but to let the tortured dead drown him.

Jarvan woke up abruptly. He had somehow managed to kick and squirm away from Marcus' offered comforts, but because he had been drugged and bound, his body did not answer him when he tried to move.

The Noxians did not bother him any longer, but there was a large raven perched on the roof of his cage and he knew full well to whom the bird belonged.

The young Prince spent the rest of the night in absolute despair, trembling from his night terror and the cold wind, holding back his tears and praying for someone to end him  _now_ —he did not want to go back to sleep because the land of dreams held no comfort for him, and he was too afraid to stay awake lest Swain found the time to return and torment him.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**  If you are reading this and you haven't completely read through the chapter, I would suggest you read it in full. There are a lot of things covered in this chapter and I do mean a  _lot_. We actually broke the previous highest words per chapter record with this heavyweight 25k word bugger right here.

First of all, for those who were lost at some point during the POV swaps, there are four chief POV characters in this chapter: Jarvan IV, Xin Zhao, King Jarvan and Ivar Purvis the Captain-General. All Demacians. No Darius for today, sorry! I know this is a Darius fic but this is a pivotal moment in the last Rune War to ever rock Runeterra, so IT MUST BE WRITTEN.

We swapped POV at  _four_ distinct moments in the text:

1\. Swain tortures Jarvan IV (we move on to Xin Zhao from Jarvan IV);

2\. The Captain-General gets dismissed by Lord Spiritmight (we move on to King Jarvan from Xin Zhao);

3\. The Royal Party rides out and parlays with Boram Darkwill (we move on to the Captain-General from King Jarvan);

4, Jarvan is seen to by Conrad, the hospitalman with the worst bedside manner in the world (we move on to Jarvan IV from the Captain-General).

Concepts dealt with today- the whole ruler-heir dynamic, which you cannot deny is rather basic (no heir, make heir, problem solved!!1!) and the concept of courtesy. Yes, courtesy. Basic politeness.

It's always struck me how Boram managed to go around wrecking havoc without Demacia stepping their little toes in his business for a good twenty one years after the Institute was established up until his (suspicious) death at the hands of _quote unquote_  Demacian assassins.

If you will note in the now defunct Journal of Justice, all the Demacians do is bark and tell the Noxians they're being assholes- but they don't  _publicly_ do anything to stop that.  _However_ , we do know from Quinn and Lux's lores that they're clandestine operatives  _and_  irregulars. They go where the army can't, and this is where (wild) speculation comes in.

If Demacia really was all for justice and righteousness as lore would have us believe, they would've nipped Boram's behavior in the bud years ago UNLESS THEIR HANDS WERE TIED PUBLICLY. But how could anyone possibly tie their knickers in a knot? The answer lies in politics, and what exactly went between King Jarvan and Boram Darkwill.

Lore says that Jarvan IV was outmaneuvered and captured by Swain, and then he was rescued by Garen and the Dauntless Vanguard. We don't know how long he was held captive, but we  _do_  know it was horrible enough to change him completely as the Prince's lore seems to hint. We also know that Urgot the High Executioner was sent from the back line to the front line just so he could execute Jarvan IV himself.

War has a certain amount of decorum attached to it- in real life we have several international laws that relate to negotiation processes (Chapter VI of the UN Charter: Pacific Settlement of Disputes), the proper treatment of noncombatants and what one can and cannot do in a battlefield (International Humanitarian Law).

Even back in the medieval days, royalty could ask for the privilege of ransom. If they were mistreated in any way, it would eventually make it's way back to their liege lord, who would then balk at their enemy's poor decorum. During the Italian Wars, the commanders of mercenary companies sometimes held personal agreements with each other so that they would fight a bit and make a show out of things but they would  _never_  outright massacre each other.

So- we have that in Shadow now with the concept of  _courtesy_. As Marcus du Couteau puts it, it is what separates  _us_  from _them_. Even Boram is party to courtesy, but that doesn't mean he's as white as snow. No, he's like Vladimir Putin that way. He knows where he can reach and how he can twist people's balls in his hands and outwardly presents a firm exterior to the rest of the world.

BUT AUTHOR, OUR WORLD IS NOT THEIR WORLD- yes I do know that, but do you honestly expect a supranational authority like the Institute of War to exist without there being some sort of Geneva Convention equivalent? Lore says they mutually agreed to STOP ALL WARS FOR THE SAKE OF THE PLANET. Writing down a treaty for HOW ONE SHOULD FIGHT logically  _should_  exist. Even if they didn't sit down to codify it, they would have at least a common acknowledgement about it.

But I'm going off on a tangent. Where was I?

Anyway, Demacia should've kicked Boram in the nuts years ago, but something stayed their hand. What I've written is basically what I thought could have happened (you are free to form/have your own interpretation). I think when Jarvan IV was captured, Boram and King Jarvan met in secret to negotiate the terms of his release. Now, exactly  _what_  the King replied to Boram's terms I won't share right now.

Did he say yes and basically tied his hands together for the next twenty years, or did he say no and that was why Urgot was sent from the back lines to the front in order to execute Jarvan III? THE ANSWER COMING SOON™.

You will note that Boram essentially is claiming credit for the capture of Jarvan IV, but we all know that Swain holds that right. But in the nature of horrible bosses who will preen about your achievements to their boss, you have Boram Darkwill using Swain's captive as his captive and political bargaining chip. What a dick, right?

I always figured it was strange for a conqueror like Boram to agree to the creation of the Institute. He's the sort of guy who doesn't give a flying fuck about other people. Boram probably only agreed because it was better than nuking the world (see also for the real-life parallel to the concept of mutual self-destruction: the Cuban Missile Crisis) and now that the Institute Accord is going to be put into force very soon, he's trying to find a way to distract the Noxian public and to keep his absurd regime going.

And there's the Black Rose (and Swain, by extension) to consider. Boram knows the Black Rose is coming for him, and he's scrabbling to cut cards with Jarvan to buy himself more time. He's desperate to find some outlet for the rabble before the Black Rose can rally them against him, and that's why he's willing to bargain.

The Chapter Title is Jus In Bello, not to be confused with the Supernatural episode. The Latin phrase  _jus in bello_  is a legal term that translates to law  _of_  war. That is to say, it is not to be confused with  _jus ad bellum,_  which is Latin for 'what constitutes as a good reason to beat people's faces in'? On a serious note, _jus ad bellum_ translates to 'right  _to_  war', which relies heavily on the concept of a just war aka Might  _for_  Right.

 _Jus in bello_  deals with many things, like the notions of  _military necessity_  ( _how much_ destruction am I _allowed_ to make to achieve an objective?),  _distinction_  ( _who_  am I allowed to kill?) and  _proportionality_  (the enemy slapped me, so _how hard_ can i slap them?). All of that will be mentioned when I get to writing the Ionian War, but for the moment, _jus in bello_ within this context has more to do with the Hague and Geneva Conventions that also fall under law of war- that  **noncombatants and prisoners of war must be given all due care**.

Now Boram's excuse is the same excuse that the American military used when they invaded Iraq in 2003 and found themselves with a silly number of people surrendering to the United States. Because their aim was to take Baghdad as soon as possible, they couldn't entertain any surrenders (the Geneva Convention threw in a _lot_ of red tape), so what did they do? They 'unsurrendered' the Iraqis that surrendered to them, and sent them back to where they came from- right into the Fedayeen death squads sometimes. You'll find all of that in Generation Kill (the book, and it's also dealt with in the HBO miniseries).

The people the Americans did keep as prisoners of war were not given as much care as the Conventions stipulate, because the loophole is that they would only be given what care the Americans themselves had access to. For the forward units whose medical companies were like fifty miles behind their own lines that meant letting people die. This is also mentioned in Generation Kill- for the sake of troop morale, First Recon's commander sends two Iraqi boys shot up by Marines to the back lines for medical attention.

Same case here:  _Jarvan IV would only be given the same amount of care that Boram's own men would have access to_ \- and we know for certain that Noxian troops are not well-cared for at all. Boram also cunningly absolves himself of all possible blame when it comes to Jarvan IV's treatment in captivity, because what men do for themselves is none of his business even if he is Grand General (what you call 'willingly turning a blind eye').

tl;dr politics is hard, read generation kill, and courtesy is gr8

So anyway that's my two cents and if I missed out on anything that need be explained, you can drop me a message and I'll throw it in this monster Q&A.

**Author's Note:**

> As an advanced warning, the romance portion of the story will not begin until later (TBA). I don't have it in myself to force characters to frickle each other for my entertainment so you're going to have to sit through Darius' life (for better or for worse) until he gets it on with Riven in earnest. We're here for Darius, and contrary to what you may believe upon clicking on the story link, it is not just Riven that makes him what he is by 21 CLE when we are introduced to him as Swain's newly minted Hand of Noxus.
> 
> Please let me know if there is anything to correct/tweak. Giving kudos and bookmarking are appreciated, as is critique in any form (ex: rabid frothing, international political debates, temporal concerns, etc.). 
> 
> If you have a question of any nature, please leave a comment here or hit me up on twitter (aleramicci) or tumblr (aleramicci). Note that queries pertaining to concepts that can be answered or inferred from the text may/may not be answered (ex: where is Riven etc.).
> 
> Thank you very much and I hope you enjoy!


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